


The Grim Godfather

by pornosophical



Series: The Lightning Bolt Path [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Humor, M/M, Pre-Slash, Slytherin Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:10:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7246138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pornosophical/pseuds/pornosophical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry’s first year at Hogwarts is marked by rather more excitement than he expected, even for a Wizarding school. Not only does he have to contend with scheming housemates, monstrous spiders, and a deadly mystery, but a man who claims to have been his father’s best friend is trying to rescue Harry from the Dursleys. Sirius Black's entrance into Harry's life seems like a dream come true, but there is evil rising in the magical world, and much Harry still has yet to learn. For the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has a long and tangled history, both with the Dark Arts, and, as it turns out, with the fate of Harry's parents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> since this is effectively a canon divergent AU there will be bits of the original text interspersed throughout the fic, with the majority of it petering out the further the story progresses

Sirius Black stalked down the halls of the Ministry like he owned them. Clerks and lesser officials scattering out of his way only reinforced this notion, their robes fluttering like nervous birds as they scurried about. It was just as well they all avoided him, Sirius was so angry he’d probably hex the first wizard who crossed his ire--or even his path.

He stormed into the central atrium towards the dark-haired figure sitting placidly in the corner of the great room, a cane laying on the bench beside them.

“That thrice damned bastard,” Sirius growled without so much as a greeting.

“It didn’t go well, I take it,” said Regulus dryly as he levered himself up into a standing position. He was leaning hard on his cane, apparently exhausted by their long day at the Ministry.

In his head, Sirius wished Bellatrix a most horrible stay in Azkaban. Maybe he’d bribe a guard to spoil her food.

“No, it didn’t,” Sirius almost snapped.

“I told you, Dumbledore has the Chief Warlock in his pocket,” Regulus said, ambling alongside Sirius, who had slowed his pace considerably. “Between that and my… youthful indiscretions, they’re never going to approve you as Harry’s guardian.”

Sirius scowled. “Hidebound old bastards, half of them subscribed to Voldemort’s ideology behind closed doors anyway.”

Regulus winced at the name, and Sirius bit back a sigh.

“Come on, let’s go home,” he said. Regulus tired so quickly these days. If he weren't careful, he’d start shaking again. “I’ll have Kreacher make dumplings.”

Regulus coughed a harsh barking sound that made Sirius’s nerves set on edge. But he was smiling when he finished the coughing bout.

“You’re doting on me, big brother.”

Sirius snorted. “Hardly. The dumplings were my favorite too, remember?”

“Of course,” Regulus said agreeably and yet somehow still patronizing.

Sirius scowled at him, both of them acutely aware of the unspoken currents of conversation. This was not a new argument, and Sirius didn’t care if Regulus felt Sirius was coddling him. In Sirius’s mind, his brother’s health was more important than his pride.

People around the lobby were trying to stare at them surreptitiously, and Sirius didn’t have the patience for it. He clapped a hand on Regulus’s shoulder and Apparated them home.

"Masters, welcome home,” Kreacher intoned with a bow seconds after Sirius and Regulus popped into the main parlor. “Is you preferring dinner now or at the usual time?”

“The usual time, Kreacher,” Regulus spoke before Sirius.

“Regulus needs a little something before then,” Sirius said and tolerated Regulus’s glower with the ease of long practice.

“Of course, Master Sirius,” Kreacher said, and then added reproachfully, “Master Regulus is most irresponsible with his health.”

Regulus sighed the sigh of the greatly put upon as Kreacher popped away to the kitchen. “The two of you don’t have to mother me so.”

“Someone ought to since our mother wasn’t much for it.”

Regulus snorted.

Kreacher had reappeared with a tray carrying a vial of Pepper-Up potion and a small plate of apple slices with a bowl of honey.

Regulus grimaced but obediently ate a slice of apple with honey before he drank his potion. If he took it on an empty stomach, it was an even chance he’d be able to keep it down, as they knew from experience.

At least Regulus was better than he used to be, there was no question about that. Sirius had spent a great deal of money securing the absolute best care for his brother. But it wasn’t good enough, not yet. Regulus still got tired too easily, fell ill too often, and felt too much pain from his curse wound.

Sirius’s eyes slid to Regulus’s right thigh, where Bellatrix’s curse had struck. Regulus would always walk with a limp, but it was the rest of it that truly concerned Sirius. With Apparition most physical disabilities ceased to matter, and if Regulus was too tired even for that, then Kreacher could ferry him about the house with ease.

All the same, if Sirius ever found himself alone with Bellatrix…

“What’s that?” Sirius asked of the letter Regulus was scanning.

“A letter from Narcissa.”

“Oh? What’s darling Cissy have to say?” Sirius drawled. “Something flattering about me, I’m sure.”

Regulus hummed noncommittally.

“She says that Draco’s teething has been driving her up the walls before she told their house elf to start feeding him half-frozen bananas.”

“Huh.” Sirius stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Andromeda did that for Dora.”

“I suppose that means they met for tea without us,” said Regulus after a moment, his eyes still scanning the letter. “Oh, to be a fly on the wall…”

“Or a dog in the next room,” said Sirius, making Regulus snort in amusement. “Good, then, that’s taken care of.”

“Such a responsible paterfamilias, taking care of our cousin when her husband gets himself thrown in Azkaban,” Regulus said only somewhat mockingly.

Neither of them cared much what happened to Lucius. Besides, he’d not been convicted as a Death Eater, just for using an Unforgivable, and the least of them at that, so he’d be up for parole in a decade or so.

If it hadn’t been the Imperius curse, though, he’d have never seen the light of day again, no matter how much money he threw around at his trial.

Sirius made a face. “Tosser. Go polish your Order of Merlin.”

Regulus grinned across at him, before a fit of coughing hit. This one didn’t sound as bad as it had in the Ministry Atrium, but it still made Sirius feel on edge.

He wanted to _do_ something, all this legal maneuvering for Harry and all the Healers for Regulus was so much paperwork. Sirius wanted to run and jump and throw some hexes at someone. Possibly Albus Dumbledore, although Sirius was under no illusions as to how a duel between the two of them would end.

Trying to outwit Dumbledore was bad enough, having to duel him would be a disaster.

“So, what’s the next approach,” Regulus asked after he’d taken a cup of tea from Kreacher.

Sirius didn’t have to ask what he was talking about, as he waved Kreacher away. “I don’t know, the solicitors tell me we’ve exhausted most of the likely legal means of action, and anything further would probably just be wasting money.”

“Well, we certainly have enough of it, now,” Regulus drawled. “Narcissa also agreed to divvy up the Lestrange vault.”

“WHAT?” Sirius leaped up from his chair. “Bloody hell, Reg! You lead with the bit about teething babies instead of that?”

“Well, it was only the one baby,” Regulus said, his dark eyes glittering with amusement.

“Absolute wanker,” Sirius said fondly. “Go play with your potions. I’ve got Galleons to claim.”

Lucius’s idiocy was their gain. Without her scheming husband around, Narcissa couldn’t afford to fight the Black Family lawyers and Sirius’s claim to Bellatrix’s estate. It was a petty bit of revenge, but Sirius was going to derive a great deal of pleasure from taking his third of the Lestrange vault.

Maybe he’d even exchange some of the gold and make some donations to a Muggle hospital or something. Bellatrix would _hate_ that.

The thought gave Sirius a feral smile.

“You know…” Regulus said in that slow tone that told Sirius his brother thought he was being clever. “There is another court we could take Dumbledore to task in.”

“What, Muggle court?” asked Sirius derisively. What an odd suggestion from Regulus.

“No, you twit, I’m talking about the court of public opinion!”

“Listen to you, think you’re so clever,” drawled Sirius, his mind racing. “I’m not sure… maybe. Let’s try some other things first.”

Sirius didn’t like that kind of underhanded scheming that came so naturally to Regulus, but he wouldn’t leave James’s son to be raised by Lily’s horrid Muggle relatives. Not if he could help it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since this is a canon divergent AU there will be lots of canon text interspersed throughout, with the majority of it dropping off after the Sorting, natch

Harry woke up early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.

“It was a dream,” he told himself firmly. “I dreamed a giant called Hagrid came to tell me I was going to a school for wizards. When I open my eyes, I’ll be at home in my cupboard.”

There was a loud tapping noise.

 _And there’s Aunt Petunia knocking on the door,_ Harry thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn’t open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

All right,” Harry mumbled, “I’m getting up.”

He sat up and a heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, a wild-haired giant was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an owl rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

So began the most magnificent day in Harry’s life thus far.

 

* * *

 

Harry had never been to London before. Although Hagrid seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

“I don’t know how the Muggles manage without magic,” he said as they climbed up a broken down escalator that led up to ta bustling road lined with shops.

They passed bookshops and music stores, hamburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if you could sell a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary people. Could there really be piles of wizard gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this all be some huge joke that the Dursleys had cooked up?

If Harry hadn’t known that the Dursleys had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Hagrid had told him so far was unbelievable, Harry couldn’t help trusting him.

This is it,” said Hagrid, coming to a halt, “the Leaky Cauldron. It’s a famous place.”

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Hagrid hadn’t pointed it out, Harry wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The people hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid form the big bookshop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the Leaky Cauldron at all. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it. Before he could mention this, Hagrid had steered him inside.

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old women were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little man in a top hat was talking tot the bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Hagrid; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, “The usual, Hagrid?”

“Can’t, Tom, I’m on Hogwarts business,” said Hagrid clapping his great hand on Harry’s shoulder, making Harry’s knees buckle. The bartender looked at Harry and his eyes went wide.

“Good Lord,” said the bartender, peering at Harry, “is this—can this be--?”

The Leaky Cauldron had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

“Bless my soul,” whispered the old bartender, “Harry Potter… what an honor.”

He hurried out form behind the bar, rushed toward Harry and seized his hands, tears in his eyes.

“Welcome back, Mr. Potter, welcome back.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. The old woman with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Hagrid was beaming.

Then there was the a great scraping of c hairs, and the next moment Harry found himself shaking hands with everyone in the Leaky Cauldron.

“Doris Crockford, Mr. Potter, can’t believe I’m meeting you at last.”

“So proud, Mr. Potter, I’m just so proud.”

“Always wanted to shake your hand—I’m all of a flutter.”

“Delighted Mr. Potter, just can’t you, Diggle’s the name, Dedalus Diggle.”

“I’ve seen you before!” said Harry, as Dedalus Diggle’s top hat fell of in his excitement. “You bowed once to me in a shop.”

“He remembers!” cried Dedalus Diggle, looking around at everyone. “Did you hear that? He remembers me!”

Harry shook hands again and again, Doris Crockford kept coming back for more.

Suddenly, the door to the Leaky Cauldron slammed open, and everyone froze, staring at the entrance. In came a tall man with dark shoulder length hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a greatcoat made of some supremely supple looking black leather and his eyes were blue and bright. Gold flashed on his wrist and his clothes looked very fine indeed. He was also quite handsome, and Harry felt his cheeks warm when the man’s eyes traced over the room and landed squarely on him.

“Harry?” the man whispered, and the people around Harry drew back. They stared at the man with wide eyes and immediately began whispering to each other. Harry figured that this man was clearly important, or at least notable. “Is that—are you Harry Potter?”

“Yes, I am,” said Harry cautiously.

“Of course, you are,” the man said, walking slowly toward Harry as if he were in a dream. “You look just like him.”

“Him?” Harry felt suddenly fragile.

“Your father,” the man said as he knelt. Even so he was still a little taller than Harry. “And your eyes… Merlin’s beard, just look at you.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably on his feet as the man stared at him almost rapturously. But this man knew his father!

“Were you a friend of my parents?”

“Your father,” the man said and smiled, revealing brilliant straight-set white teeth. “Best friends through—well, most of school.”

Harry noticeably brightened up. Best friends with his father? He’d never known anyone aside from the Dursleys and Aunt Marge who had known his parents until he met Hagrid. But this man had been best friends with his father! Surely that meant he could tell Harry more about them.

“Sirius,” Hagrid rumbled, not without amusement. “Ye haven’t even told the boy yer name yet.”

The man, Sirius, snorted and his smile turned into a rueful grin. “You can always trust Hagrid to cut to the heart of the matter, Harry. My name is Sirius Black, and I’ve been waiting for a long time to see you again.”

He stuck out his hand, and Harry shook it, grinning wildly at Sirius. Sirius stood up and looked at the crowd of people watching them.

“That’s enough gawking, you lot,” he said sharply, and everyone began to bustle back to their seats.

Harry watched in amazement, was Sirius someone very important to order people around like that?

“Well, must get on—lots ter buy. Come on, Harry,” said Hagrid, ushering Harry towards the back.

“Hold on,” said Sirius. “I’m coming with.”

“Er—but Professor Dumbledore—” Hagrid began and Sirius gestured sharply at him.

“Don’t you ‘Professor Dumbledore’ _me_ , Hagrid. I’m coming.”

Hagrid sighed. “All right then. Come if yer comin’.”

Sirius quickly caught up to them as they walked outside into a small, walled courtyard, with nothing but a trashcan and a few weeds in it.

“Told yeh, didn’t I? Told yeh you was famous,” Hagrid was saying to Harry with a grin.

“I guess so,” said Harry. The famous-thing was flooding his head a bit, making the world seem surreal to a degree he’d never experience outside of dreams, but mostly he wanted to ask Sirius a hundred million questions. “Um, Mr. Black—“

“Call me Sirius, please, Harry,” said Sirius with a wince.

“—Sirius, you went to Hogwarts with my dad?”

Sirius nodded happily as Hagrid was counting the bricks in the wall above the trashcan.

“Yes I did—but hold on, stand back,” said Sirius, gently guiding Harry back with a hand on his chest. It was a protective touch, the kind of touch that Harry had little experience with. Sirius’s hand was large and powerful, but he moved Harry gently.

It made him feel warm.

Hagrid winked at Harry and then tapped the wall three times with the point of his umbrella.

The brick he had touched quivered—it wriggled—in the middle a small hole appeared—it grew wider and wider—a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.

“Welcome,” said Hagrid, “to Diagon Alley.”

Harry stared in amazement and looked from Hagrid to Sirius and back again. When they walked through Harry looked back to see the archway shrink instantly back into the solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons—All Size—Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver—Self-stiffing—Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.

“Yeah, you’ll be needin’ one,” said Hagrid, “but we gotta get yer money first.”

“Nonsense,” Sirius said, drawing Hagrid up short. “I’ll buy everything he needs.”

“Well—er—that is…” Hagrid said scratching the back of his head. “We still need ter go to the bank…”

"You may be right,” mused Sirius, pulling out a small clasped money-pouch. He snapped it open and rummaged around with his finger. “Could use a few more Galleons, and Harry should have some spend-money.”

“Galleons?” asked Harry, wishing he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the people doing their shopping.

A plump woman outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed saying: “Dragon liver, sixteen Sickles an ounce, they’re mad…”

Wizarding money,” Hagrid explained. A low, soft hooting came from a shadowy shop with a sign saying Eeylops Owl Emporium—Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys about Harry’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it.

“Look,” Harry heard one of them say, “the Nimbus 2000—fastest ever—“

Sirius’s eyes lingered on that shop too as they passed. There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eel eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon…

“Gringotts,” said Hagrid.

They had reached a snow white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was—

“Yeah, that’s a goblin,” said Hagrid quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The goblin was about a head shorter than Harry. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed bear and, Harry noticed, very long fingers and feet. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with a vivid warning engraved upon them.

Harry read it and gulped.

“Like I said, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” said Hagrid.

Sirius snorted in amusement as a pair of goblins bowed them through the silver doors and they were finally in a vast marble hall. About a hundred goblins were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scratching in large ledgers with magnificent feather quills, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, yet more goblins were showing people in and out of these.

Hagrid started making his way toward a counter when Sirius gestured for him to stop.

“We’ll use my personal banker,” he said, and Hagrid’s eyebrows went.

“Pers’nal banker?”

Sirius smiled grimly.

“Reconciling with my extended family had some fringe benefits, hadn’t you heard?” he said, and Hagrid looked uncomfortable.

Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Another goblin approached them. He wore a well-tailored suit and was a little taller than most of the other goblins in the bank, and he carried himself with a certain servile dignity.

“We could always go to the head goblin,” Sirius said drolly, “but why go to them when they come to us?”

The well-dressed goblin stopped before them. “Mister Black, how are you today?”

“Very well indeed,” Sirius said grinning broadly. “Look who I’ve brought with me.”

The goblin peered at Harry in confusion for a minute before its eyes drifted up and saw his scar. Then the goblin almost looked surprised.

“I see. You are to be congratulated, Mister Black,” said the goblin and Sirius rolled his eyes. “Now how may I help you this morning?”

“All right, stow the excitement, Bragnud. We’re in need of a cart and a trip to Harry’s vault. And mine.”

“And—er—one more,” Hagrid interjected, looking uncomfortable, before turning to the goblin and whispering as he handed over a letter: “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen.”

“I see,” said the goblin, scanning the letter quickly. “And the key to young Mr. Potter’s vault?”

“Oh, I got that right here,” Hagrid said and began to rifle through his pockets. After a moment of waiting Sirius put a hand on Hagrid’s arm to forestall further effort.

“Hold on, Hagrid,” he said and suddenly a long wooden stick dark as a starless night popped out of his sleeve and into his hand. With a flick of the stick he said: “ _Accio_ key.”

Immediately one of Hagrid’s pockets twitched, and a small golden key floated up out of it. Hagrid looked sheepish.

“That’s all in order then,” Sirius said as his stick shot back up into his sleeve.

“What was that? Was that magic?” Harry asked excitedly, and Sirius frowned.

“Yes, that was magic, and this,” he said, letting the wand pop back out of his sleeve into his hand, “is a wand. But you should know that. Hagrid, why doesn’t he know that? What’s going on?”

“Er—ahem,” mumbled Hagrid. “I reckon that’s something we should talk ‘bout later.”

Sirius’s eyes narrowed and then he turned to Harry. “Harry, why didn’t you know what a wand was? Why didn’t you know—what do you know about yourself?”

“Well,” Harry began a bit nervously. Was this a test? Was he about to be told it was all a lie? “Hagrid told me—“

“Stuff that Hagrid didn’t tell you,” Sirius interrupted him sharply. “What do you know about the Wizarding world that Hagrid _hasn’t_ told you?”

“I guess… nothing then?” Harry said after a moment’s hesitation. “The Dursleys hate the idea of magic anyway. One time I had a dream about a flying motorcycle and I thought Uncle Vernon would belt me.”

Harry nearly quailed at the expression that crossed Sirius’s face then, but Sirius quickly turned his palpable anger toward Hagrid. “Did you know about this?”

“O’ course not!” protested Hagrid. “Why I’d of shown that Dursley a thing or two if I had!”

“But Dumbledore did, didn’t he?”

“No, Professor Dumbledore didn’t know anything ‘bout that,” said Hagrid sharply and Harry remembered how much Hagrid seemed to value this Professor Dumbledore. “And yeh know why he has ter stay with them!”

Sirius evidently felt differently, subsiding with a grumble. If this Dumbledore had indeed known Harry was being treated the way he was, then Harry would agree with Sirius.

“Fine,” said Sirius, his tone implying he would re-address this later, probably with this Dumbledore person. He turned a warm smile on Harry. “Let’s go check out your vault. You should see what your parents left you.”

They followed Bragnud through a door to a narrow stone passageway, lit with flaming torches. It sloped downward steeply, and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Bragnud whistled in a peculiar way, and a large cart came hurtling up the track toward them. They climbed in, and Harry marveled at the velvet seat.

“Never been in one o’ these afore,” murmured Hagrid as he got in. Sirius sat next to Harry; one arm casually slung over the back of the cart.

“These luxury carts are available upon asking for our most valued clients,” said Bragnud severely, “And _only_ those clients. Now, if you would, please hold on.”

And they were off.

At first, they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Harry tried to remember left-right-right-left-middle fork-right-left but it was impossible. The rattling cart vibrated beneath him, and Sirius was laughing in delight next to him, sharing the thrill with Harry. Hagrid looked a little green and Bragnud stood perfectly motionless. The cart seemed to know its way because Bragnud wasn’t steering.

Harry’s eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open, one hand on his glasses, so they didn’t fly off. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of  passage, and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late—they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

“I never know,” Harry yelled over the noise of the cart, “what’s the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite.”

“Stalagmite’s got an ‘m’ in it,” said Hagrid, and burped. “An’ don’ ask me questions just now, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Sirius laughed and leaned over to Harry with a laugh. “Just remember, the ‘c’ in stalactite is for ceiling, and the ‘g’ in stalagmite is for ground.”

Harry laughed too, in delight at the speed, the wind blowing around him and Hagrid’s face, which was very nearly green. When the cart finally came to a stop, beside a small door in the passage wall, Hagrid got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

“Is this it?” Harry asked.

“Yes,” Sirius said quietly, his voice strained. “This is your parents’ vault.”

Bragnud unlocked the door and bowed it open. A great deal of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Insider were mounds of gold coins, columns of silver, heaps of little bronze Knuts.

“All yours,” said Hagrid, who had rejoined them after getting his breath back.

All Harry’s. It was incredible. The Dursleys couldn’t have known about this, or they’d have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Harry cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under London.

“Bragnud, you have a pouch for Harry?” asked Sirius.

“Those are reserved for our elite accounts, Mister Black,” Bragnud croaked reluctantly.

Sirius just gave him an expectant look. The kind of look that Uncle Vernon’s boss gave Uncle Vernon on one of the rare occasions he came over for dinner. Harry had been on his best behavior for that because Aunt Petunia had promised him a weekend off of his chores if he stayed quiet and out of sight.

It hadn’t mattered. The dinner didn’t go well, and Harry wound up with extra chores for the weekend.

“He’s my godson, and therefore heir to my estate. Just give me one of the pouches and I’ll give it to him.”

Bragnud sucked his teeth but still walked back to the cart.

“Godson?” asked Harry, unable to hide the vulnerable tone to his voice.

Sirius winced.

“Well, perhaps not legally,” he said apologetically. “But I do consider us family. James told me that he wanted… Well, that is, he was trying to… ah, there we are.”

Bragnud was back and handed a small money pouch with an elegant silver clasp, just like Sirius’s, to Harry. Harry wanted to hear more about his father, but Sirius was very clearly changing the subject.

“You can put as much in it as you like,” said Sirius, showing him how to open and close it. “It’s bottomless.”

Harry quickly checked the bottom of the pouch and Sirius laughed. “No I mean it’s bigger on the inside.”

“Wow,” said Harry. “Thank you, Sirius!”

Both Hagrid and Sirius helped him pile some of the immense pile in his parent’s vault into the pouch. Harry watched with no small amount of delight as each coin he dropped in fell farther down than was supposed to be possible.

“The gold ones are Galleons like I told you earlier,” explained Hagrid. “Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough. There, that should be enough fer a couple o’ terms, we’ll keep the rest safe for yeh.”

“Not that you’ll need to spend much of it,” Sirius said with a wink. “If you need anything while you’re at school you can just owl me. Now, Hagrid, do you want to visit Dumbledore’s secret vault first?”

"Whichever is closest,” Hagrid said evenly. “And can we please go more slowly?”

“Mr. Black?” Bragnud asked, and Sirius gave him a look.

“Treat their requests as you would mine, Bragnud.”

“Then, if sir would please take his seat, we will go to the Black vault first as it is fractionally closer. And we shall go ‘more slowly’,” Bragnud said disdainfully.

Hagrid sighed and relaxed into his seat while Harry marveled at how the little pouch weight next to nothing. He shoved it into his pocket.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed, although not as quickly as they had before. Hagrid still looked uncomfortable.

The air became colder and colder as they ran around tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Harry leaned over the side to try and see what was down at the dark bottom, but Sirius’s hand clamped on the nape of his neck like a vise and pulled him back.

No one had ever done things like that before with Harry. Any time Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia touched him, he could practically feel their disgust.

Sirius was acting protective of him again. Something inside of Harry felt empty and warm, a bittersweet ache that pulled at him from inside his chest.

Suddenly, without warning, they were inundated with freezing cold water. Harry gasped as the icy liquid seemed to pour into his very bones.

Hagrid spluttered, and Sirius sighed.

“Was that really necessary?” Sirius asked, and Bragnud sniffed.

“It was, Mr. Black. As you know, we make security our highest priority,” said the goblin as Sirius spelled them all dry.

“What was that?” asked Harry as he shook the cold feeling away, marveling at how dry he was now.

“The Thief’s Downfall,” Sirius said grumpily as the cart pulled up to a halt. “Keeps people from fooling the goblins.”

Suddenly there was an enormous clanking sound that had Harry looking around wildly to see what was there.

“Come this way,” said Bragnud. They followed the goblin and turned a corner and Harry stared in awe.

Before him was a massive dragon, tethered to the ground, barring access to the deepest vaults in the place. The beasts’ scales had turned pale and flaky during its long incarceration under the ground; its eyes were milky pink; both rear legs bore heavy cuffs from which chains led to enormous pegs driven deeply into the rocky floor. Its great spiked wings, folded close to its body, would have filled the chamber if it spread them, and when it turned its ugly head toward them, it roared with a noise that made the rock tremble.

Bragnud strode forward, clearly unafraid. Out from beneath his coat he took a number of small metal instruments that when shaken made a loud ringing noise, like miniature hammers on anvils.

Harry felt sorry for the dragon as it turned away from them. He saw scars made by vicious slashes across its face and body. He began to feel vaguely sick, but Sirius didn’t remark on it. Hagrid looked like Harry felt, though.

They reached a large door with elaborate carvings on it and Bragnud pressed his hand to the wood, and the door of the vault melted away to reveal a truly massive cave crammed from floor to ceiling with golden coins, gem encrusted goblets, silver armor, elderly spell-books, potions in jeweled flasks, raw gems cut and uncut, amulets of all sorts, even some well-preserved looking robes off in a corner. Dominating it all was a pedestal in the center of the room with a jagged stone knife that looked positively prehistoric and almost like it was sucking the light into it.

It made Harry’s fault look positively small and empty, and there’d been a _fortune_ in Harry’s vault.

“Vault seven hundred and eleven, belonging to Master Sirius Orion Black of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black,” Bragnud said stiffly, and then bowed out of the way.

Oh. Sirius wasn’t just someone important; he was someone _very_ important.

“Right then, this’ll only be a moment,” Sirius said and ducked into the vault. Harry moved to follow, but Hagrid put a hand on his shoulder.

“Best not to take too long,” Hagrid said, “we’ve got loads to do today.”

Harry bit his lip. What was someone like Sirius doing with someone like him? But then again, he’d been friends with Harry’s dad, and clearly Harry’s dad had been wealthy too, although not like Sirius was.

He wished that Sirius really were his godfather. He never wanted to go back to the Dursley’s ever again.

“That we do,” Sirius said rejoining them. “All done.”

Bragnud nodded and closed the vault. They went back past the dragon and took the cart just around the corner where they arrived at vault seven hundred and thirteen. The door to his vault also had no keyhole, but unlike the door to Sirius’s vault Bragnud stroked this door with one finger to open it.

“If anyone but a Gringott’s goblin tried that they’d be sucked through the door and trapped,” Sirius told Harry.

“How often do they check to see if anyone’s inside?” Harry asked.

“Average inspections occur every ten years or so,” said Bragnud with a nasty little smile. The door opened and Harry expected to see treasure on the scale of what he’d seen in Sirius’s vault. At first he thought the room was empty, then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Hagrid picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Harry longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

“So what’s Dumbledore keeping so hush-hush?” asked Sirius.

“It’d be more than my jobs worth to tell yer,” said Hagrid gruffly and Sirius shrugged, indicating he didn’t care much one way or the other.

 

* * *

 

One cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside Gringotts. Harry didn’t know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn’t have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know he was holding more money than he’d ever had in his whole life—more money even than Dudley had ever had as well!

“All right then,” said Sirius, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get… Hagrid, are you all right?”

“Sorry,” said Hagrid. “Them carts always do a number on me. Mind if I nip away fer a pick-me-up, Sirius?”

“Not a problem,” said Sirius as Hagrid handed him Harry’s letter to Hogwarts. “Come along, Harry, let’s make a real wizard out of you.”

“How are you going to do that?” asked Harry excited to do whatever Sirius said.

“First order of business: getting you a wand,” said Sirius. “And there’s only one place that’s good for wands, and that’s Ollivanders.”

“Ollivanders?” asked Harry. A magic wand… this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.

They walked down the street past exciting and wonderfully bizarre storefront after storefront until they came to a narrow and shabby looking place. Peeling gold letters over the door read Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny space, empty except for a single spindly chair. Harry felt strangle as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes pilled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. Harry jumped, but Sirius just smiled and turned smoothly to greet the speaker.

An old man was standing before them, his wide pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

“Mr. Ollivander,” said Sirius with a nod of his head.

“Good day, Mr. Black, haven’t seen you since you came in here all aflutter with questions several months back,” said the old man. “What was your first wand again? Ah yes, twelve and a half inches long, made of dogwood, rather flexible, and with a dragon heartstring core. Good for pranks and general excitement. A pity they snapped it! Then it was… Thirteen inches, blackthorn, somewhat pliant, a dragon heartstring core from a particularly vital specimen. A powerful wand, good for… combative magicks.”

“He always does this,” said Sirius as an aside to Harry.

Harry was busy staring at the many boxes stacked haphazardly around him.

“Why of course I do! A wand is a wizard’s most valuable companion. And they tell you everything you need to know about a person when they buy them. Or I should say, are chosen.”

“So how come my second wand was different from my first, then?” Sirius asked good-naturedly, and the old man smiled.

“Why people change of course! I cannot count the number of middle-aged wizards and witches who have come to me asking why their wand no longer works and it is because they are different people from when they bought them! The wand chooses the wizard, but sometimes the wizard changes, and the wand won’t change with them. But you are not here today for yet another wand, Mr. Black, you are here for this young man.”

Mr. Ollivander turned his silvery gaze on Harry and his eyes gleamed. “Yes, yes I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Harry Potter. You have your mother’s eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

Mr. Ollivander moved closer to Harry. Harry wished he would blink as this was all getting to be a bit much.

“Your father on the other hand favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it— as I said, it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard.

Mr. Ollivander had come so close that he and Harry were almost nose-to-nose. Harry could see himself reflected in those misty eyes. His eyes flickered towards Sirius, who was staring off into the distance with a pained expression.

“And that’s where…” Mr. Ollivander touched the lightning scar on Harry’s forehead with a long, white finger for a moment, before Sirius shifted Harry back and slightly behind him.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” Ollivander said softly. “Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands… well if I’d known what that wand was going out into the world to do…”

Sirius cleared his throat meaningfully, his eyes hard. “I think that’s enough said about that, Mr. Ollivander.”

“Right, right,” Ollivander said. “Now, Mr. Potter, let me see…” He pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of his pocket. “What is your wand arm?”

"‘Er—well I’m right-handed,” said Harry.

“Hold out your arm. That’s it.” He measured Harry from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and around his head. As he measured he said, “Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Potter. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another wizard’s wand, unless you win it over, of course.”

Harry suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between his nostrils, was doing this on its own. Mr. Ollivander was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes.

Sirius had drawn his wand and before Harry’s astonished and delighted eyes he made a cushy leather armchair pop into existence.

“Gonna take a load off while you get fitted,” Sirius said with a wink.

“That will do,” said Ollivander on his return. The tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. “Right then, Mr. Potter. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take and give it a wave.”

Harry took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Mr. Ollivander snatched it out of his hand almost at once.

“Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try—“

Harry tried—but he had hardly raised the wand when it too was snatched back by Mr. Ollivander.

“No, no—here, blackthorn and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out.”

Harry tried hard, waving the wand around desperately. He wanted a wand like Sirius’s! But Mr. Ollivander took that wand back too.

So Harry tried, and he tried. He had no idea what Mr. Ollivander was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Mr. Ollivander pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere—I wonder, now—yes, why not—unusual combination—holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.

Harry took the wand. He felt sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head and brought it swishing down through the dust air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot form the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls.

Sirius whooped in delight, and Mr. Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes indeed, very good. Well, well, well… how curious… how very curious…”

He put Harry’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, “Curious… Curious…”

“Sorry,” said Harry, “but what’s curious?”

Mr. Ollivander fixed Harry with his pale stare. Harry could feel Sirius standing behind him, like a wall at his back.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather—just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother—why, its brother gave you that scar.”

Harry felt more than saw Sirius go very still behind him.

“Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember… I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter… After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things—terrible, yes, but great.”

“I think that’s enough of that talk,” Sirius said, placing a gentle hand on Harry’s shoulder, but his voice was hard, like metal.

Harry wasn’t sure he liked Mr. Ollivander too much.

Sirius paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Mr. Ollivander bowed them from his shop.

“Well, that was...” Sirius trailed off and then grinned down at Harry. “Don’t let that old loon intimidate you. Now let’s see, what else do you need?”

As they walked down the street and Harry thanked Sirius profusely for his wand, they saw Hagrid.

“You don’t have to thank me so much,” said Sirius as they waved to Hagrid. “You’d think you never got a present before.”

“Well, not really,” Harry said honestly, and Sirius looked at him sharply.

“Not even on your birthday? Christmas?”

“No, all I usually get on my birthday is Uncle Vernon’s old socks,” Harry said glumly.

Sirius looked particularly incensed for a moment, and then he took a deep breath.

“What is your home life like, Harry?” asked Sirius, and although he sounded quite mild Harry had a feeling like that time he’d gotten too close to a downed power line.

Sirius wasn’t just rich and important—he was powerful.

“Er—well, it’s not the best, but it’s not terrible.” After all he wasn’t out on the streets and Uncle Vernon didn’t hit him. At least not unless he did something really, really, really stupid.

He said as much to Sirius and then stopped, because he’d never seen anyone look that angry before. If he’d thought Sirius was angry earlier that he didn't know about his own heritage he was wrong, because now Sirius was truly angry.

“Right,” said Sirius. “Okay. Well you won't have to worry about that much longer, because there are going to be some changes.”

Sirius bit the last word out like a threat.

“Okay,” Harry said, trying not to get his hopes up. He knew Sirius was rich and important and probably used to getting his way, but Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia wouldn’t change their minds.

“Gotcher wand, Harry?” Hagrid asked as he came up with a large covered cage. “Excellent, and I got yeh a birthday present!”

“You didn’t have to,” Harry stammered, his face hot. He wasn’t used to this.

“I know I don’t have ter,” said Hagrid with a laughed, “Now I know yer allowed three sorts o’ pets at Hogwarts but toads’ll get you laughed at, and I hate cats. But owls, now, owls are dead useful and good companions, so…”

As he spoke Hagrid took off the cover and Harry instantly fell in love with the snowy owl resting her head on her wing.

“You’ll have ter pick a name for her,” Hagrid said and Harry grinned up at him. First a wand from Sirius and now an owl from Hagrid? The revelation that he was a wizard and his parents weren’t drunken good-for-nothings? The fact that he was a wizard who would be going to Wizarding school? Could this day get any better?

“Now lessee,” Hagrid said burying his head over Harry’s letter with Sirius. “What’s next?”

“Let’s work our way back toward Madam Malkin’s as our last stop,” Sirius said. “So, apothecary first.”

The Apothecary was fascinating enough to make up for the horrid smells coming out of it, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stodd on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Sirius asked the man behind the counter for a supply of basic and mid-level potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and miniscule glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Next they visited a bookstore named Flourish and Blotts where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley who never read anything would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Hagrid almost had to drag Harry away from _Curses and Counter-curses (Betwitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More)_ by Professor Vindictus Viridian.

“I was trying to find out how to curse Dudley.”

“I’m not sayin’ that’s not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances,” said Hagrid. “An’ anyway, yeh couldn’t work them curses yet, yeh’ll need a lot more study before you get ter that level.”

While Hagrid was lecturing Harry, Sirius grinned at him and slipped the book into their bag.

Hagrid also wouldn’t let Harry buy a solid gold cauldron, either (“It says pewter on yer list”), but Sirius bought him the most expensive and durable crystal vials in the store along with a fancy looking set of scales for weighing out ingredients. And the telescope Sirius got him could compress so far it resembled a lady’s compact (and cost so many galleons that Hagrid’s bushy eyebrows had nearly flown off his forehead).

Sirius also bought Harry a set of self-inking Unbreakable quills, a pair of Graphorn gloves (“Even tougher than dragon hide,” Sirius had told him), a marble Wizarding Chess set, and a set of magical binoculars called Omnioculars.

In one day Sirius had spent more money on Harry than the Dursleys had the entire time he’d live with them!

“Might as well get yer uniform, now,” said Hagrid after they’d left the last shop, nodding towards Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. “Sirius you wanna handle this? I was thinkin’ Harry here might like a treat.”

“Of course,” said Sirius and then added gravely to Harry, “I’ll have you know that in some quarters I am regarded as something of a fashion trend setter.”

He said this while smoothing his hands down the sleek, dark greatcoat he wore. Harry had noticed most wizards favored robes, which the greatcoat gave the impression of, while still allowing Sirius to wear trousers.

Hagrid grunted in amusement and trundled off, leaving the other two to push open the elderly wooden door to the shop.

Madam Malkin was a squat, smiling witch dressed all in mauve. When she saw Sirius she visibly brightened, cooing as she practically ran over to them

“Mr. Black! So wonderful to see you again,” she said and Sirius took her hand, bowing like a gentleman.

“Madam,” he said kissing the back of her hand and she tittered in delight. “I'm here with my young companion to procure some of your excellent robes for his first year at Hogwarts.”

“Oh?” she asked and smiled at Harry for a moment before returning her attention to Sirius. “I have the whole lot here—another young man is being fitted up just now in fact.”

Harry left Madam Malkin to lavish attention on Sirius and walked toward the back of the shop. There he found a boy with a round face and a glum expression standing on a footstool while a second witch pinned up his long black robes. Madam Malkin, who was still blushing, bustled in followed by a grinning Sirius. She directed Harry to a stool next to the other boy, slipped a long robe over his head and began to pin it to the right lengths.

“Hullo,” said the boy as though he was trying to be upbeat but didn’t quite know how. “Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” said Harry, with a glance back at Sirius. Sirius grinned at him, and then something caught his eye and he stepped out of the fitting room.

“Eyes forward, young man,” Madam Malkin said around a mouthful of pins. Harry dutifully stared forward at his reflection and straightened up.

“My mum’s next door buying my potions stuff,” the boy went on. “Gran says I’m too clumsy to be allowed in a store with anything breakable and expensive.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say to that. He could hear Sirius talking to another sales-witch about what colors were coming in season. Apparently Sirius liked clothes a great deal, although Harry could have guessed as much. Under Sirius’s greatcoat he wore clothes closer to those Harry was familiar with, a vest and cuff-linked shirt tucked into rugged yet fashionable looking trousers, and his boots had beautifully wrought silver buckles which looked very stylish to Harry indeed.

Sirius must be very popular with the ladies, Harry decided, as he watched from the corner of his eyes as the sales witch laughed at something Sirius said. Every witch they’d run into seemed besotted with him.

“I nearly blew up Mr. Ollivander getting my wand,” the boy continued sounding mournful. “Have you got a wand yet?”

“Yes,” said Harry, unwillingly remembering what Mr. Ollivander had said about his wand.

“Mine’s larch,” said the boy. “I wanted cedar like my dad’s, but I got larch.” He sighed. “Are you excited for Hogwarts?”

“Oh, yes,” Harry said brightly.

“I hope I get sorted into Gryffindor,” the boy said with another sigh. “Both my parents were in Gryffindor, but I just don’t know… Gran says I’m more of a Hufflepuff. I don’t _feel_ like a Hufflepuff though, and my mum says that’s what’s important.”

Harry, who had no idea what the other boy was talking about, just hummed in agreement. It was, apparently, enough.

“Do you know which house you want to be in?” asked the boy.

“No,” said Harry, wishing he did know. “Whichever house my dad was in, I guess.”

“Which was that?”

“I—“ Harry was about to confess he didn’t know when an elderly woman’s voice filled the shop.

“Neville! Neville where are you?”

“I’m right here, Gran,” said the boy loudly. An elderly witch with a formidable look about her thin and bony shoulders stalked up to them. She carried an enormous red bag, wore a great big blue shawl and had a stuffed vulture perched atop her hat.

“Neville, your mother’s nearly done at—well I’ll be,” said Neville’s Gran. “If it isn’t Sirius Black! I haven’t seen you in an age.”

“Hello, Mrs. Longbottom,” Harry heard Sirius say in a more subdued tone than any he’d heard from Sirius before.

“Speak up, boy, I’m old and I don’t hear so good,” she commanded him sharply. “And stand up straight.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sirius said, snapping to attention and playing it up with a roguish grin.

“So what are you here for, new robes? Got a girl in your life yet? You were always an incorrigible bachelor,” said Mrs. Longbottom, and in the mirror Harry could see her prodding Sirius in the chest with one bony finger. “Are you almost done? Stay a minute, Alice would love to see you. How’s young Regulus these days? His health holding up? We never see you two.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sirius said although he sounded a bit tense to Harry’s ears. “Harry’s getting his robes for Hogwarts.”

“Harry—you can’t mean—Harry Potter!” exclaimed Mrs. Longbottom. Neville turned to look at Harry with wide eyes that switched immediately to focus on his barely visible scar.

“Blimey,” breathed Neville. “You’re Harry Potter.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably as even Madam Malkin leaned back to look at him.

“Don’t stare, Neville, it’s not polite,” snapped his grandmother and Neville straightened to attention as soon as the words left her mouth. He was flushed and grinning sheepishly though and Harry felt a little better.

Behind him Neville’s grandmother walked up.

“Hello, Mr. Potter, my name is Augusta Longbottom, and this is my grandson, Neville,” Mrs. Longbottom said to the back of Harry’s head.

“Nice to meet you,” Harry said and Mrs. Longbottom rounded on Sirius. They began to talk in low tones.

“All done with you, dear,” said the witch working with Neville. After he gingerly took off his robe (and still managed to poke himself with a pin) he turned to Harry and nodded.

“It was really neat to meet you, Harry,” said Neville. “I hope we’re in a house together.”

“Well if Neville’s done I suppose we should be going,” said Mrs. Longbottom. “What on earth could be taking Alice?”

“Give her my best,” Sirius said quietly and Mrs. Longbottom gave him a sharp look.

“You best not be blaming yourself for anything, Sirius Black. And if that’s why I haven’t so much as seen your face all these years I’ll show you a jinx or two mark my words.”

“Of course not, Mrs. Longbottom,” Sirius said quickly. “I’ll be… I’ll be sure to speak with Alice soon.”

“I should hope so! And pass along my good-wishes to your brother. At least he has a proper excuse for not being out and about! Come along Neville. Pleasure to meet you, Harry,” she said as she dragged Neville out of the shop.

Sirius sighed with relief once the door clicked shut. Harry could empathize, Mrs. Longbottom clearly didn’t let her age, or anything else, slow her down.

“So what were you two talking about?” Sirius asked and Harry almost shrugged before remembering that Madam Malkin was chalking his hemlines.

“Sirius? What house were you and my dad in?”

“Gryffindor,” Sirius said proudly. “So was your mother. All of us, Gryffindors, it’s a great house you’ll love it.”

“You think I’ll be in Gryffindor, then?” asked Harry. Joining the house that his parents were in would be amazing, especially if Neville was there too. It’d been a long time since someone Harry’s age had talked to him without Dudley threatening to beat them up. “How do you get sorted?”

“Well,” Sirius said thoughtfully. “I’m not supposed to say, but I think you’re Gryffindor through and through. It’s in your blood, Harry, nothing to worry about.”

“Well, all right then,” said Harry, relishing the idea of being in the same house his parents and Sirius had been in. Just then there was a tapping on the window and Harry craned to look in the mirror. Outside stood Hagrid with three ice cream cones in his massive hands. Harry was suddenly very hungry.

“That’s you done, m’dear,” Madam Malkin said, “it was a pleasure to help you, Mr. Potter.”

“Er—thanks,” Harry said. He liked being famous but it was a bit awkward. People were so… deferential.

Sirius seemed to take it as his due. Harry wasn’t sure if he liked it though, the attention was almost oppressive.

Harry devoured his ice cream that Hagrid had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts). After making a mess of his face, Sirius offered him a clean handkerchief to wipe his mouth off.

“So how was clothes’ shopping?” Hagrid asked.

“Ran into Augusta Longbottom,” said Sirius and Hagrid gave him a look.

“How’s yer brother?”

Harry blinked up at Sirius who sighed. Mrs. Longbottom had asked about a Regulus, so Harry assumed that must be the name of Sirius’s brother.

“He’s doing better these days. Still gets sick too often for my liking.”

“But he’s healthy on the main? Tha’s good,” Hagrid said munching on the last of his ice cream cone.

“Healthy enough to parade about with his Order of Merlin whenever he wants to irritate me, at least,” Sirius grumbled.

Hagrid chortled. Harry was a bit lost.

“What’s an Order of Merlin?” he asked.

“It’s an award given to those who do a great service,” said Sirius. “Reg’s is first class, so he’s a right tit about it.”

“And Alice is being tapped for Head Auror now,” said Hagrid.

“That’s… nice,” said Sirius. Hagrid gave him a befuddled look.

“Yer brother’s the one as saved her, dunno why you’d think she blames yeh.”

“She doesn’t,” said Sirius sharply. “But the past is the past. So, Harry, did you have a good day? We got everything he needs, right?”

Harry was a bit turned around by the sudden subject switch.

“Um,” he said hesitantly as he looked at his bags.

“Think so,” said Hagrid as he peered at Harry’s letter. “Yep, that’s everything.”

“It’s a lot of stuff,” said Harry, looking at the funny-shape packages Hagrid was carrying.

“We should get something to put it all in,” said Sirius and then he brightened. “Right, a proper trunk for you! That’s the ticket. Just a minute.”

With that Sirius vanished in a little pop, startling Harry.

“Where’d he go?” asked Harry.

“Er—I don’t rightly know,” said Hagrid, “but he’ll be back he said. He just Apparated is all.”

“Apparated?”

“Yeah, he just popped on over ter someplace else,” said Hagrid a little sadly, tapping his umbrella. “Yeh get a license and everything over at the Ministry when you come of age.”

Just then Sirius popped back into being with a small, ugly creature standing next to his right leg and an elegantly constructed trunk behind them. The creature had a huge droopy nose and sagging ears but it stood straight up and wore what looked like an aged rag around his waist with great pride.

“Kreacher, take everything from Hagrid and make sure it all fits in this trunk. If the charms need upkeep, or if it needs more room, take it to Luggchest & Molloy and have them do whatever’s necessary.”

“As Master wishes,” Kreacher croaked and Hagrid began setting parcels down. As he did so Kreacher began to pack them in the trunk, although he did this by gesturing and having the packages fling themselves neatly into the trunk.

None of the passersby considered this at all strange in the least, but Harry was amazed.

“Who is that?” whispered Harry to Sirius who just grinned.

“That’s my house-elf, Kreacher,” said Sirius as Kreacher vanished with the neatly packed trunk. “Now, I think we still have enough time to grab a bite to eat before your train. Shall we?”

They stopped to eat at the Leaky Cauldron, which was far emptier than it had been earlier. Sirius bought them all savory pies for a late lunch. Harry ate his game pie dutifully, but didn’t say a word otherwise.

“You all right, Harry? Yer very quiet,” said Hagrid, when he and Sirius had paused in their conversation.

Harry wasn’t sure he could explain. He’d just had the best birthday of his life—and yet—he chewed his mouthful of pie, trying to find the words.

“Everyone thinks I’m special,” he said at last. “All those people that were here earlier, Mr. Ollivander, even that boy, Neville and his Gran… but I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m famous and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for. I don’t know what happened when Vol-sorry, I mean the night my parents died.”

Sirius opened his mouth to say something but Hagrid, with a kind smile behind his wild beard, beat him to it.

“Don’t you worry, Harry. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Hogwarts, you’ll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard. But yeh’ll have a great time at Hogwarts—I did—still do, ‘smatter of fact.”

“And,” Sirius put in. “You won’t be alone. Hagrid and I will be there.”

“Yeh will?” Hagrid asked, clearly confused.

“Didn’t you hear?” Sirius asked a bit of the imp in his eyes. “I’m taking over for Professor Quirrel while he’s on sabbatical.”

“You’re going to be teaching at Hogwarts?” asked Harry excitedly.

“Yes indeed,” Sirius assured him with a brilliant grin. “I’m going to be your Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a fair bit of canon text in this chapter. there could be less, but I'm lazy

Whatever Sirius had done, it had worked. Harry’s last month with the Dursleys wasn’t much fun, but it was a great deal more peaceful than he was used to. True, Dudley was now so scared of Harry he wouldn’t stay in the same room, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon hadn't shut Harry in his cupboard, or tried to make him do anything, or even shout at him—in fact, they didn’t speak to him at all, except for Uncle Vernon telling him he could move his things into the guest bedroom. Half terrified, and half furious, they acted as though any chair with Harry in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while. So much silence was unnerving, particularly since it followed Harry around the house.

Luckily, he had lots to do in his new room, which was where he spent most of his time. And his new owl kept him company. He had decided to call her Hedwig, a name he found in _A History of Magic_. Even his schoolbooks were fascinating. He would lay each night on his bed reading until it was far too late. He also read the book Sirius had gotten him, and discovered Hagrid was right, most of what the book asked for was way beyond him.

Still, fun to read about, though, and fantasizing about casting some of these spells on Dudley helped Harry while away many afternoons.

Sirius had also given Harry a small magic mirror, one that he said Harry could use to contact him anytime Harry wanted to talk. When Sirius had told Harry that his dad and Sirius used to use the mirrors to chat during detentions, Harry had felt a little like crying. He finally had something that had belonged to his father! Using the mirror to speak to Sirius didn't come easily, he'd never had someone who wanted to talk with him before, much less an adult who had known his parents, but every time he picked up the mirror Sirius was there as if he was waiting for Harry call. Harry learned that his dad and Sirius got into trouble regularly with a group of friends, they called themselves the Marauders, and Harry spent several late nights laughing near to tears as Sirius recounted their exploits. He promised there were other, even more, outrageous escapades, but Harry would have to be a bit older to learn about those.

Harry couldn't wait. For the first time since he could remember he was excited to wake up each morning, one step closer to Hogwarts. Every night before Harry went to sleep he ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first. He dreamed about magic and fun with new friends, about learning from Sirius, and he read his textbooks and played with Hedwig. Between all of that, his new room, and the Dursleys ignoring him the House on Privet Drive was almost pleasant, if still somewhat lonely.

On the last day of August he thought he’d better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to King’s Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room, where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Dudley screamed and ran from the room.

“Er—Uncle Vernon?”

Uncle Vernon grunted to show he was listening.

“Er—I need to be at King’s Cross tomorrow to—to go to Hogwarts.”

Uncle Vernon grunted again.

“Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?”

Grunt. Harry supposed that meant yes.

“Thank you.”

He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Vernon spoke.

“Funny way to get to a wizards’ school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?”

Harry didn’t say anything.

“Where is this school anyhow?”

I don’t know,” said Harry, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Hagrid had given him out of his pocket.

“I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o’clock,” he read.

His aunt and uncle stared at him.

“Platform what?”

“Nine and three-quarters.”

"Don’t talk rubbish,” said Uncle Vernon. “There is no platform nine and three-quarters.”

“It’s on my ticket.”

“Barking,” said Uncle Vernon, “howling mad, the lot of them. You’ll see. You just wait. All right, we’ll take you to King’s Cross. We’re going to up to London tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn’t bother.”

“Why are you going to London?” asked Harry, trying to keep things friendly.

“Taking Dudley to the hospital,” growled Uncle Vernon. “Got to have that ruddy tail removed before he goes to Smeltings.

 

* * *

 

Harry woke up far too early the next day but was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He made sure that all of his things were in order (Kreacher had packed most everything perfectly), that Hedwig was safely shut in her cage and then paced the room until the Dursleys woke up.

He almost used the mirror to talk to Sirius, but he’d hesitated, worried that it was too early. Then it was too late, and he was being rushed out the door. The Dursleys would be as happy to be rid of him as Harry was to be rid of them.

His trunk was magically light enough that when Uncle Vernon picked it up, he nearly fell flat on his behind. He scowled at Harry as though it were Harry’s fault, and it was all that kept Harry from laughing. Sirius had told him that the trunk had two compartments depending on which lock he opened. One was for clothes, the other for things like tools, potion ingredients, and books. It was far bigger on the inside than the outside and weighed only a few pounds.

They reached King’s Cross at half past ten. Uncle Vernon dumped Harry’s trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Harry thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Vernon stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

“Well, there you are, boy. Platform nine—platform ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built yet, do they?”

He was quite right of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle nothing at all.

“Have a good term,” said Uncle Vernon with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Harry turned and saw the Dursleys drive away. All three of them were laughing. Harry’s mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Hedwig. He’d have to ask someone.

When that didn’t work out well, he began to panic. According to the large clock on the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Hogwarts, and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could barely fit his arms around, a pocket full of wizard money and a large owl.

Hagrid and Sirius must have forgotten to tell him what do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Diagon Alley. At that moment he almost sighed in relief. He could just call Sirius.

As he debated where he should pull over and dig through his trunk to get out Sirius’s mirror, a group of people passed behind him, and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“—packed with Muggles, of course—“

Harry swung around. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk not dissimilar from Harry’s in front of them, and they had an _owl_.

Heart hammering, Harry pushed his cart after them. They stopped, and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

“Now, what’s the platform number?” said the boy’s mother.

“Nine and three-quarters!” piped up a small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand. “Mum, can’t I go…”

“You’re not old enough, Ginny, now be quiet. All right, Percy, you go first.”

What looked like the oldest boy marched towards platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it—but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him, and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.

“Fred, you next,” said the plump woman.

“I’m not Fred, I’m George,” said the boy. “Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother. Can’t you _tell_ I’m George?”

"Sorry George, dear.”

“Only joking, I am Fred,” said the boy and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone—but how had he done it?

Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier—he was almost there—and then, quite suddenly, he wasn’t anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

“Excuse me,” Harry said to the plump woman.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “First time at Hogwarts? Ron’s new too.”

She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.

“Yes,” said Harry. “The thing is—the thing is I don’t know how to—“

“How to get onto the platform?” she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

“Not to worry,” she said. “All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it; that’s very important. Best if you do it at a bit of a run if you’ve nervous. Go on, go now before Ron.”

“Er-okay,” said Harry. He wondered if he should call Sirius to confirm this but the woman was looking at him expectantly, and so he pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that barrier, and then he’d be in trouble—leaning forward on his cast, he broke into a heavy run—the barrier was coming nearer and nearer—he wouldn’t be able to stop—the cart was out of control—he was a foot away—he closed his eyes ready for the crash—

It didn’t come… he kept on running… he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock. Harry looked back over his shoulder and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words _Platform Nine and Three-Quarters_ on it. He had done it!

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Harry pushed his cart down the platform in search of an empty seat when he passed a familiar face.

“Mum, I’ve lost Trevor again,” Neville was saying to a pretty woman with her brown hair pulled back tight into a business-like bun. Neville's mother looked like a kind person, calm but also confident in the way certain people are as if no matter what obstacles life threw up in their path they were strong enough to face them down.

“Oh, _Neville_ ,” said his grandmother who was standing just behind him, the stuffed bird on her hat swaying with indignation. “How in Merlin's name did you manage that?”

“I don't know! I thought I locked his cage,” said Neville, shifting his weight side to side anxiously. “And there’s so many cats…”

“Trevor will be fine,” said his mother and gently soothed Neville’s hair with her hands. “He always is. Now, promise me you’ll have lots of fun and make lots of friends, okay?”

“Alright, mum, I promise—hey, Harry!” Neville waved over to Harry, who had lingered a little too long, unsure of how to approach them. “Hey, mum, it’s Harry who I told you all about!”

“Yes, you did,” his mother said patting Neville's hair down, before she reached out with her other hand to Harry. "It’s wonderful to meet you, Harry.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Longbottom,” he said as he shook her hand. She seemed genuinely warm and gentle, and Harry liked her already.

“Please, call me Alice, Mrs. Longbottom is my mother-in-law,” said Alice with an impishly dimpled smile.

Behind her, Neville’s gran harrumphed, the vulture on her hat wobbling perilously.

“Neville, why don't you invite Harry to share a carriage with you," suggested Alice.

“Okay!” said Neville brightly and then frowned. “But I have to look for Trevor…”

“Trevor is a very clever rat, he’ll find his way back home,” said Alice firmly. “Especially if you put some of his favorite cheese in his cage once you get to Hogwarts. Now run along you two; you want to get a good compartment!”

Neville and Harry pressed through the crowd and boarded the train. Harry was glad to have found Neville, even if he seemed to be just as lost as Harry. Eventually, they found an empty compartment near the end of the train and settled in.

“You’ve got an owl? Lucky,” said Neville as Harry made sure Hedwig was taken care of before attending to his trunk. It was light enough for him to lift it but his arms weren’t long enough to get it up. Neville was struggling with his trunk, which was obviously very heavy.

“Want a hand, lads?” It was one of the red-haired twins Harry had followed through the barrier.

“Yes, please,” said Harry as Neville panted and dropped his trunk.

“Oy, Fred! C’mere and help!”

With the twins’ help, Harry’s trunk was tucked away along with Neville’s in a corner of the compartment.

“Thanks,” Harry said, pushing the hair out of his eyes.

“What’s that?” said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Harry’s lightning scar.

“Blimey,” said the other twin. “Are you—“

“He _is_ ,” said the first twin. “Aren’t you?” he added to Harry.

“He is,” said Neville, nodding. The twins gaped at him.

“Who is?” said Harry.

"You are," Neville told him.

“ _Harry Potter_ ,” chorused the twins.

“Oh, him,” said Harry. For a moment there he'd felt like he was in a comedy routine. “I mean yes, I am.

The two boys gawked at him, and Harry's cheeks grew hot. He still wasn't used to all this attention. Then to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.

“Fred? George? Are you there?”

“Coming, Mum.”

With a last look at Harry, the twins hopped off the train.

Harry sat down next to the window, feeling exhausted. He could see the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her handkerchief.

“Ron, you’ve got something on your nose.”

“I expect you’re real tired of people being excited about you,” Neville said, startling Harry, who had almost forgotten the other boy was there.

“Er—yeah,” said Harry. “It’s a little strange.”

“Sorry if I was weird when we met at Madam Malkin’s,” said Neville scratching the back of his head. “Gran always says I need to work on my ‘decorum.'”

“That was all right,” said Harry. “You’re really the first person I—my first friend. If you—I mean, you wanna be friends?”

“Sure!” said Neville brightly and they shook hands. “Okay, I gotta look for Trevor.”

“I’ll come with,” said Harry as Neville got out his cage and put a piece of crumbly cheese in it.

“Thanks, Harry, that’s awfully nice of you,” said Neville. “I’ve never really had a friend before either.”

Harry felt a bit better then, and the two boys smiled at each other. Just then he heard his name.

_“Harry Potter!”_ He turned to look out the window.

The little red-headed sister of the four boys began begging her mother to let her go on the train.

“You’ve already seen him, Ginny, and the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Fred? How do you know?”

‘Asked him. Saw his scar. It’s really there—like lightning.”

“Poor _dear_ —no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform.”

“Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?”

Their mother suddenly became very stern.

“I forbid you to ask him, Fred. No, don’t you dare. As though he needs reminding of that on his first day of school.”

“All right, keep your hair on.”

A whistle sounded, and Neville fidgeted at the door to the compartment.

“Harry?”

“Coming,” said Harry. They both began walking down the hall as the train started moving, calling for Trevor while Neville tried to fan his piece of cheese. As they made their way down the hall, they bumped into the youngest redheaded boy.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, head tilted to one side.

“Looking for my rat,” Neville said mournfully.

“I thought you could only have cats, toads or owls?” said the boy and Neville shrugged.

“Well I have a rat, and my mum said it was fine when she asked the headmaster,” Neville said, and the red-headed boy’s eyes widened.

“Wow, your mum knows Professor Dumbledore?” Neville nodded. “That’s bloody brilliant!”

The boy kept looking at Harry and then twisting his head back to Neville, as though he was doing something bad. “You guys want any help?”

“If you please,” Neville said, and the boy glanced at Harry again.

“Are you really Harry Potter,” the boy blurted out, and Harry nodded.

"Oh—well I thought it might be one of Fred and George’s jokes,” said the boy. “Oh! And my name is Ron. Ron Weasely.” They all shook hands.

“Neville Longbottom,” said Neville when Ron shook his hand.

“Have you really got—you know,” said Ron to Harry, pointing at his forehead.

Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar. Ron stared, and so did Neville, who had never seen it so close.

“Wow,” said both Ron and Neville. They both stared at Harry before Ron jerked away to look down the corridor.

“Let’s find Trevor,” Harry suggested, and they started walking.

After a few minutes, Neville began to give up hope and Harry itched to ask Ron and Neville questions. The reading he’d done that summer hadn’t told him nearly enough about the Wizarding world, and he'd been too invested in asking Sirius questions about his dad to plumb him for information.

“Maybe we should ask a prefect?” Ron suggested. “My brother Percy’s one, he’d help us.”

“I’ll just go ask,” said Neville. “You guys can go back to the compartment.”

“Okay,” said Harry, and he and Ron went back to go sit down.

They watched the landscape roll by for a few minutes, during which Ron kept looking at Harry before hurriedly looking out the window.

"Are all your family wizards?” asked Harry, who found Ron just as interesting as Ron found him.

“Er—yes, I think so,” said Ron. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”

“So you must know loads of magic already,” said Harry.

"Not really,” said Ron. “I heard you went to live with Muggles. What are they like?"

Harry and Ron traded stories, and commiserated over hand-me-downs and never getting proper birthday presents. 

“…and until Hagrid told me I didn’t know anything about being a wizard or about my parents or Voldemort—“

Ron gasped.

“What?” asked Harry.

“ _You said You-Know-Who’s name!_ ” said Ron, sounding both shocked and impressed. “I’d have thought you of all people—“

“I’m not trying to be _brave_ or anything saying the name,” said Harry, “I just never knew you shouldn’t. See, what I mean? I’ve got loads to learn…I bet,” he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, “I bet I’m the worst in the class.”

“You won't be. There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families, and they learn quick enough.” Ron assured Harry, and he felt a little better.

While they had been talking the train had carried them out of London. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, “Anything off the cart, dears?”

Harry, who hadn’t had any breakfast, had leaped to his feet in excitement while Ron’s ears went pink and he muttered about having brought sandwiches. Having never had any money for candy with the Dursleys, and now having pockets rattling with gold and silver he had been ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry—but the woman didn’t have those. Instead, she had a dazzling array of Wizarding candy, strange things that Harry had never seen before in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything.

After some gentle negotiations with Ron, who was loathe to admit how much he wanted the snacks, Harry got him to have a pasty. Sharing felt good to him; he’d never been able to share before.

He wondered if this was what it felt like for Sirius getting to buy him all his school supplies.

“What are these?” Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. “They’re not really frogs, are they?”

He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.

“No,” said Ron. “But see what the card—“

 Just then the door to the apartment clanked open, and Neville returned, triumphantly holding a cage with a ragged looking old rat in it.

“I found him!” Neville beamed at them, and Harry grinned back.

“So… that’s your rat?” asked Ron. He looked a bit unimpressed, and Harry didn't blame him. Trevor had a patchy, unattractive coat, a long scraggly tail, and it looked like he was even missing a toe. 

“Yeah, he’s not much to look at, but he’s clever as all get out,” said Neville proudly. “Every time I lose him he manages to turn up all right. And—wow! You have a lot of snacks!”

“Want some?” Harry held up a Chocolate Frog, figuring that Neville could demonstrate them.

Sure enough, Neville unwrapped his Frog with a minimal amount of fumbling and glanced at the card as he casually bit the frog in two.

"It’s not Agrippa, is it?” asked Ron. Neville shook his head, handing the card to Ron.

“Can I see?” asked Harry and Ron passed him the card. It showed a man’s face. He wore half-moon glasses, and had a long crooked nose, and flowing silver hair, beard and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Albus Dumbledore.

“So _this_ is Dumbledore,” said Harry. He stared at Dumbledore hard, this man who he'd never met who apparently had left him with the Dursleys.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Dumbledore!” said Ron. “Can I have a frog? I might get Agrippa—thanks—“

Harry turned over the card and read what was on the back. Then he turned the card back over and saw to his astonishment that Dumbledore’s face had disappeared.

“He’s gone!”

“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” said Ron. “He’ll be back.”

“Can I have another, Harry?” asked Neville. 

“Help yourself,” said Harry, “both of you. But in the, you know, Muggle world, people just stay put in photos.”

“Do they? What, they don’t move at all?” Ron sounded as amazed as Neville looked. “ _Weird!_ ”

The boys continued to snack, introducing Harry to all the Wizarding candy with the appropriate warnings. They had a good time eating Every Flavor Beans, talking about the Wizarding world and the Muggle world.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills. As the world streamed by, Harry learned about all sorts of things: that one of Ron’s older brothers was a curse-breaker, that the other tamed dragons, that Neville’s mom was an Auror, which they then had to explain to Harry just what an Auror was.

Inevitably, they wound up talking about Quidditch.

Just as Ron was taking Harry through the finer points of the game with Neville nodding enthusiastically, the compartment door slid open. Three boys entered. Two of them were thickset and looked extremely mean, standing on either side of the middle boy they looked like bodyguards. The middle boy was blond, with a pale pointy face.

“Is it true?” he asked. “They’re saying all down the train that Harry Potter’s in this compartment. Which of you is Harry Potter?”

Harry pointed to himself and the blond boy’s eyes widened. He stepped forward and held out his hand.

“My name’s Malfoy, Draco Malfoy.”

Harry shook his hand, but Ron gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Draco Malfoy looked at him.

“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are,” sniffed Malfoy. “My mother told me all about you Weasleys; blood traitors, the lot of you.”

“That blood purity stuff is a load of old bollocks,” said Ron.

“Yeah, I’m a Sacred Twenty-Eight too, but who cares?” said Neville.

“Surname?” asked Malfoy sharply.

“Longbottom,” said Neville with great pride. One of the goons flanking Malfoy snorted and Neville flushed an angry red. “What are you laughing at?”

“Your name,” said the goon. “It’s stupid. I bet you’re stupid. I bet your parents are stupid.”

That was apparently the wrong thing to say to Neville. The morose and clumsy boy Harry had gotten to know seemed to vanish. Neville shot up, and although he wasn’t as big around or as tall as Malfoy’s goons, he looked furious.

“You take that back,” said Neville, his voice trembling with rage.

“Oh, you’re going to fight Crabbe now?” sneered Malfoy, but his friend Crabbe looked a little nervous.

"I think you should leave,” said Harry and Malfoy looked at him.

“You’ll find that some Wizarding families are better than others, Potter. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” said Harry coolly.

Malfoy didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks. “You’ll see, Potter, you’ll see. Come, Crabbe, Goyle.”        

The three boys streamed out of the compartment and Neville deflated.

“Well, that was fun,” said Ron and the three boys laughed awkwardly.

“What’s the Sacred Twenty-Eight?” asked Harry. Ron scowled while Neville sighed.

“It’s a list of twenty-eight families with pure blood going back at least… how many generations?” Neville turned to Ron, who shrugged.

“Who cares? It’s all bollocks anyway.” Harry grinned, Ron sure swore a lot. Harry thought that was pretty cool.

“But what’s it mean, pureblood?” asked Harry when the other two seemed more interested in candy than explaining.

“Well, it’s basically if you have only wizards in the family,” said Ron.

“And witches,” piped up Neville.

“Right, of course,” said Ron. “Half-blood is having one parent magic and the other Muggle. And Muggleborns are of course where both your parents are Muggles.”

“So… I’m a pureblood?” ventured Harry.

“Yeah, but not like we are,” said Ron with a sour look. “You’re a full-blooded wizard, but to a lot of purebloods, that’s still a half-blood. That’s why it’s stupid. People aren’t worth more or less because of how pure their blood is.”

Harry wondered if Sirius was a pureblood. He had to be, what with all the money and the way he moved through the world like he owned it. Hagrid didn’t seem the type, but then again what did Harry know?

A voice echoed throughout the train: “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Harry’s stomach lurched with nerves, and Ron looked pale under his freckles. Neville though, just began changing into his robes, although he did get stuck in his robe, somehow, trying to pull it on. Ron’s robes were a bit short for him, and his sneakers could be seen peeking out from beneath them.

Harry said goodbye to Hedwig and then they crammed their pockets full of sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor. The train slowed right down and finally stopped. People pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Harry shivered in the cold night air. 

Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students and Harry heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Harry?”

Hagrid’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. 

“C’mon, follow me—any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Hagrid down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Harry thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Hagrid called over his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Ooooh!”

“Everyone in?” shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. “Right then—FORWARD!”

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the enormous castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Hagrid as the first boats reach the cliff, they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the class face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath he castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

They made their way up and over a flight of stone steps and crowded around a massive oak door.

“Everyone here?” asked Hagrid. Then he raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face, and Harry’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

“The firs’ years, Professor McGonagall,” said Hagrid.

“Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursley’s house in it. Flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts lit the stone walls, casting long wavering shadows. The ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” said Professor McGonagall. “The state-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Hogwarts. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.”

She went on to explain the Houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. How they all had a noble history and each had produced outstanding witches and wizards. There was also something about House points, but Harry wasn’t listening to that so hard.

He wondered which House he’d be in. He wanted Gryffindor so badly!

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourself up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered on Neville’s horribly rumpled robes, and on Ron’ smudged nose. Harry nervously tried to flatten his hair.

“I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor McGonagall. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber. Harry swallowed.

“How exactly do they sort us into Houses?” he asked Ron. Sirius had refused to tell him no matter how many times Harry had asked.

“Some sort of test, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I reckon he was joking.”

Harry’s heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? Sirius had said it was nothing to worry about!

“It’s not anything like that,” Neville said, looking remarkably tranquil despite his pale face. “My mum said it’s easy, and it doesn’t hurt at all, you just have to listen and do as you’re told. But she still wouldn’t tell me what it was.”

Harry felt a bit better then, Alice Longbottom had seemed like the kind of lady who could be trusted. He was a little envious of Neville, Sirius hadn’t been half so comforting, in fact he seemed to think the mystery was all great fun.

Harry was looking forward to seeing him soon.

Still, most everyone else seemed to believe Ron. Harry heard the bushy haired girl who had ridden on the boat with them reciting spells under her breath and wondering which one she’d have to use.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air—several people behind him screamed.

“What the--?”

He gasped, and so did the people around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: Forgive and forget, I say, we out to give him a second chance—“

“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost—I say what are you all doing here?”

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few people nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” said the Friar. “My old House, you know.”

"Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor McGonagall had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now form a line,” Professor McGonagall told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Harry got into line behind a boy with sandy hair, with Ron behind him and Neville behind Ron. They walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Harry had never imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblet. At the top of the hall was another long table where teachers were sitting. Harry tried looking for Sirius and thought he saw him but his surroundings were just so amazing he couldn’t focus.

Professor McGonagall led the first years up to the teachers table and Harry grinned weakly at a smiling Sirius before the elegant dark-skinned witch next to him nudged him. Then Sirius became mock stern and Harry felt some of the tension leave him.

The first years lined up before the teachers, facing the students. Hundreds of faces stared up at them looking like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Harry looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars.

He heard the bushy haired girl say, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in _Hogwarts: A History_.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open to the heavens.

Harry quickly looked down again as Professor McGonagall silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed wizard’s hat. This hat was patched and frayed and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have let it in the house.

_Maybe they had to try and get a rabbit out of it_ , Harry thought wildly, the calm gained from seeing Sirius completely gone. Noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the hat, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds there was complete silence. Then the hat twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth—and the hat began to sing.

When the hat finished its song the entire hall burst into applause. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we’ve just got to try on the hat!” Ron whispered to Harry. “I’ll kill Fred, he was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Harry smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the hat was a lot better than having to do a spell, or wrestling a troll, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The hat seemed to be asking rather a lot; Harry didn’t feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the hat had mentioned a house for people who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor McGonagall now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said. “Abbot, Hannah!”

A pink-faced girl with blonde pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the hat, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause—

“Hufflepuff!” shouted the hat.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Hannah went to sit down at the Hufflepuff table. Harry saw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“Bones, Susan!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!” shouted the hat again and Susan scuttled off to sit next to Hannah.

“Boot, Terry!”

“RAVENCLAW!”

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Ravenclaws stood up to shake hands with Terry as he joined them.

“Brocklehurst, Mandy” went to Ravenclaw too, but “Brown, Lavender” became the first new Gryffindor, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Harry could see Ron’s twin brothers catcalling.

“Bulstrode, Millicent” then became a Slytherin. Perhaps it was Harry’s imagination, but he thought they looked like rather an unpleasant lot. He didn't want to end up over there.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remember being picked for teams during gym at his old school.He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Dudley to think they liked him.

“Finch-Fletchley, Justin!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

Sometimes, Harry noticed, the hat shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Finnigan, Seamus,” the sandy haired boy next in line to Harry, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the hat declared him a Gryffindor.

“Granger, Hermione!”

The bushy haired girl almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.

“GRYFFINDOR!” shouted the hat.

A horrible thought struck Harry, as horrible thoughts always do when one is very nervous. What if he wasn’t chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor McGonagall jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake, and he’d better get back on the train. 

What if he never saw Sirius again?

When Neville was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. Almost as soon as the hat settled on Neville's head it shouted, “Gryffindor!” Neville ran off still wearing it, and had to job back amid gales of laughter to give it to “MacDougal, Morag.”

Now Harry doubly hoped he was in Gryffindor. Neville was his first new friend, and if Ron was in Gryffindor as well then that'd be ideal so far as Harry was concerned.

Draco Malfoy swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, “SLYTHERIN!”

Well, that cemented Harry's desire to not be in Slytherin. There weren’t many people left now.

“Moon”…, “Nott”…, “Parkinson”…, then a pair of twin girls, “Patil” and “Patil”…, then “Perks, Sally-Anne”…, and then at last—

“Potter, Harry!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaand away we go!

“Potter, Harry!”

As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall. His eyes flickered toward Sirius, who was smiling encouragingly.

“ _Potter_ , did she say?”

“ _The_ Harry Potter?”

The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness yes—and a nice thirst to prove yourself; now that’s interesting… So where shall I put you?”

Harry remembered Neville’s words from his mother, “just do what you’re told.” As much as he wanted to be in Gryffindor, he didn’t want to fail this test, so he kept silent.

“Perhaps… yes, yes, that’s the ticket. While you would certainly find a home in Gryffindor, your thirst to prove yourself and your raw potential make you perfect for the crucible that is SLYTHERIN!”

Harry heard the hat shout the last word to the whole hall. It was met with silence, and then the Slytherin table began applauding loudly.

Harry took off the hat with shaking fingers and walked to the Slytherin table, feeling deaf and numb. How could this have happened? He’d wanted Gryffindor so badly… That was when he noticed he was getting a standing ovation from the Slytherins. He walked over to the other first years and sat down. He took a seat next to a pug-faced girl who fluttered her eyes at him, possibly trying to be coquettish.

“See, Potter?” said Malfoy smugly from across the table. “I told you.”

Harry ignored him. Once he sat down he could see the head table clearly, and his heart sank even further. Sirius’s face was shuttered, and Hagrid wouldn’t even look at him. Harry managed to catch Sirius’s eye, desperate to know he hadn’t alienated the man who was the closest thing to real family he might have.

Sirius looked straight at him, and his face softened. He nodded and mouthed "it's okay" and Harry felt relief course through him.

And now there were only four people left to be sorted. “Thomas, Dean,” a black boy even taller than Ron joined the Gryffindor table. “Turpin, Lisa,” became a Ravenclaw and then it was Ron’s turn. He was pale green by now. Harry hoped at least Ron got into Gryffindor.

A second later his wish was validated, as the hat shouted “GRYFFINDOR!”

Then the final student, a good-looking boy named “Zabini, Blaise,” was made a Slytherin and sat down on Harry’s other side. Professor McGonagall rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting Hat away.

Harry looked down at his empty gold plate. He didn’t feel like eating, but suddenly the nausea in his belly turned to raw, gnawing hunger. The pumpkin pasties seemed ages ago.

Albus Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”

So this was Dumbledore? He looked like Harry thought a wizard ought to, with his great big beard and colorful robes. Harry wasn’t sure if liked him, though, Sirius didn’t but Hagrid clearly respected him a great deal.

“Thank you,” Dumbledore said, as though the student body had done him a great kindness.

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“Old fool,” said Malfoy with a mocking sneer.

“That old fool is the most powerful wizard alive,” Blaise Zabini pointed out mildly. Malfoy glowered at him.

“My mother says he’s a crackpot and a blood-traitor.”

“And my mother says it's a poor life strategy to insult powerful wizards, especially within hearing distance,” said Zabini, tranquilly pouring something orange into his goblet. Malfoy turned a bit pink and then folded his arms across his chest. “Not that I think your mother’s wrong, mind you. Potter, pass me the lamb chops.”

Harry’s mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled high with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup and for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Dursleys had never exactly starved Harry unless they kept him in his cupboard overnight, but he’d never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Dudley had always taken anything that Harry ever wanted, even if it made him sick to eat it all. Harry piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

Just then the air around him turned frigid, and Harry began to shiver. A ghost drifted through him and Pansy to sit on the other side of the table next to Malfoy. He had blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood.

Harry stared at the ghost and then averted his eyes when he seemed to notice.

“So, you’re Harry Potter?” the girl next to him asked. “Is it true you were raised by… _Muggles_?”

She said the word like it was scandalous, and Harry hesitated to answer.

“Don’t bother with him, Pansy,” said Malfoy dismissively.

“Yes, I was,” said Harry and all the first years made noises of disgust. Although he agreed that the Dursleys were contemptible, his new companions didn’t know that, and their distaste didn’t settle well with him. “Not all Muggles are bad, you know.”

“See, he’s a just like a blood traitor,” said Malfoy easily. “Everyone knows Muggles are little more than filthy animals.”

Harry nearly stood up. “They are not!”

“Be silent,” said the ghost suddenly and they all froze. “Eat. Argue later, where you won’t embarrass Slytherin.”

The first years obeyed quietly. After he’d eaten his fill, Harry sighed and slouched back a bit.

“You ate quite a bit, there,” said Zabini, who was nibbling on another lamb chop. He'd filled his plate with them, the bones picked clean and piled like a bird’s nest. There was no sign of any other food on his plate.

“I was hungry,” said Harry a bit defensively, and Zabini shrugged. He put down his neatly nibbled lamb chop and then the food began to vanish, fading from the plates to leave them sparkling clean. A moment later, desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam, doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding…Harry helped himself to a treacle tart. It was delicious. As Malfoy struck up a cautious conversation with a quiet dark-haired boy sitting a couple of spots up from Harry, Harry relaxed, feeling warm and full, and a bit sleepy. He looked up at the High Table again.

Harry helped himself to a treacle tart. It was delicious. As Malfoy struck up a cautious conversation with a quiet dark-haired boy sitting a couple of spots up from Harry, Harry relaxed, feeling warm and full, and a bit sleepy. He looked up at the High Table again.

Hagrid was drinking deeply from his goblet. Sirius was talking to the dark-skinned witch beside him, smiling and possibly flirting a bit. She seemed fairly receptive to Harry’s eye, and he felt a little jealous. Why wasn’t Sirius looking out for him instead of chatting up pretty witches?

Professor McGonagall was talking to a diminutive-looking man while Professor Dumbledore was speaking to a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin. His appearance was further marred by three long thin scars that stretched up and across his face.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Dumbledore straight into Harry’s eyes—and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Harry’s forehead.

“Ouch!” Harry clapped a hand to his head.

“What in Merlin’s name was _that_?” Malfoy sneered in wicked amusement.

"N—nothing,” said Harry.

Even Zabini was giving him an odd look, and Harry stared at his plate, wishing everyone else would just ignore him.

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Harry had gotten from the teacher’s look—a feeling that he didn’t like Harry at all.

“Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Dumbledore?” Harry asked Zabini since he seemed the only half-decent sort.

“That would be Professor Snape,” Zabini said. “He’s the Potion’s Master and Head of our House.”

Harry almost groaned. His Head of House already hated him? He watched Snape for a little while but Snape didn’t deign to look at him again.

After dinner was finally finished, Dumbledore said a few more words. When that was done, he reminded them of a few dangers around the school, including that anyone going to the third-floor corridor would be risking a painful death.

Harry laughed at this, and so did Malfoy, to their mutual dismay. Zabini gave them both looks that plainly said he felt they were idiots.

“What?” asked Harry. “He wasn’t serious, was he?”

"Of course he was,” said Zabini looking at Harry with a very superior manner. “Now hush.”

“—And finally, I would like to introduce your new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, here to cover for Professor Quirrel whom we’ve lost to his extended sabbatical, I give you Professor Sirius Black.”

Sirius stood, and Harry could see many of the older student witches straightening up and checking their hair. Sirius waved and smiled at the student body before he sat back down. Just as he lowered himself into the chair he caught Harry’s eye again and nodded to him, and one to Zabini as well.

Harry’s eyes flicked to Snape, who was rigidly staring at the far end of the great hall, looking livid. Harry swallowed nervously.

“So, you know Professor Black?” asked Zabini, beating Harry to the same question.

“Yeah, he was a friend of my dad’s,” said Harry. “Do you know him too?”

“I should say so,” said Zabini, swirling his goblet of pumpkin juice. “He saw my mother for a time while she was between six and seven.”

"Six and seven?” Harry asked confusedly, and Zabini's face went cold.

“My mother’s sixth and seventh husbands. Sirius and she… dated,” he said, leaving no doubt as to what they had been up to. Harry didn’t know much about sex, but he could see it being inferred.

“Well, I don’t blame her,” Parkinson said suddenly from across the table. “He’s rich, handsome, powerful, and everyone knows the Blacks were fanatical about blood purity.”

“Sirius—I mean—Professor Black doesn’t care about that stuff,” Harry shot back at her.

Malfoy made a face at Harry’s words.

“Mother was right. It really is all lunatics and blood traitors at this school.”

The mass singing of the Hogwarts anthem covered the noise of Harry’s response. Once the song was done Dumbledore dismissed them.

“All right, first years come this way,” said a dark-haired girl with a round face and her hair in ringlets. She wore a prefect badge. The first years followed her out of the Great Hall, and into the Entrance Hall, before taking a staircase down.

“My name is Gemma Farley,” said the prefect who was leading them ever downward. They turned through several passages before arriving at a stretch of bare, damp stone wall.

“These are the dungeons, and this is the entrance to our common room,” Gemma Farley was saying. “The password to the common room changes every fortnight. Keep an eye on the noticeboard. Never bring anyone from another house into our common room or tell them our password. No outsider has entered the common room for more than seven centuries. If you forget the password, tough luck. You’ll have to convince someone to let you in. I find that bribes of candy and offers to do homework work best.”

“Now,” she said looking over the group. “The password is: _mors ante infamiam_. Remember it.”

She turned and spoke to the wall, and a stone door concealed in the wall slid open. She marched through with the first years trailing behind her.

The Slytherin common room was a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling form which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. A fire was crackling under an elaborately carved mantelpiece ahead of them, and some of the high-backed chairs around the fire were already occupied. Ornate tapestries covered the walls, and the windows seemed to look out into the lake itself.

After he was in his new dorm, Harry felt exhausted. He changed into his pajamas, which earned him some snickers from Malfoy and his cohorts for how shabby they were.

Harry barely cared. He was in a House he didn’t like, with people who didn’t like him, and a house head who hated him. This wasn’t what he’d imagined on coming to Hogwarts.

Perhaps he’d had a bit too much to eat as well because his dreams were very strange. Sirius was staring at him, telling him that he must transfer to Gryffindor or else he was lost. Harry told him he didn’t want to be in Slytherin and then noticed rats running everywhere; he could feel their scrabbly little feet on his skin.

Suddenly Malfoy was laughing at him, asking where his clothes were, and Harry realized he was naked. Then Malfoy transformed into Snape, whose laugh became high and cold and his eyes began to glow red. Then came a burst of green light and Harry woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again listening to the lake lap against the dungeon, and when he woke the next day he didn’t remember the dream at all.


	5. Chapter 5

Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Harry wished they wouldn’t, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

And then, once one had managed to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Harry quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a dumpy little witch called Professor Sprout, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor Binns had been very old indeed when he had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving his body behind him. Binns droned on and on while they scribble down names and dates, and got Emeric the Evil and Uric the Oddball mixed up.

Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was a tiny little wizard who had to stand on a pile of books to see over his desk. At the start of their first class he took the roll call, and when he reached Harry’s name, he gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Blaise had been amused to no end when Malfoy re-enacted the scene later to Harry’s frustrated embarrassment.

Professor McGonagall was again different. Harry had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross. Strict and intelligent, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Hogwarts,” she said. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but soon realized they weren’t going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the class, Nott was the only person who had made any substantive change to their match; Professor McGonagall showed the class how it had gone all silver and gave him an approving nod.

Next was the class Harry had been looking forward to the most, Defense Against the Dark Arts. Harry had been so busy adjusting to life at Hogwarts he hadn't had time to seek out Sirius in between classes, and after the WElcome Feast Sirius rarely attended meals for some reason. Harry wanted desperately to talk to Sirius, to tell him that being in Slytherin wasn’t Harry's fault and could he possibly transfer Houses?

The Slytherin first years filed into the classroom for their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class, and found the room was empty. They took their seats, chattering about what they might learn, except Nott, who quietly took his seat and stared at the board, and Harry who was casting his gaze about looking for Sirius. Was he hiding somewhere?

“Do you think he’s late, Draco?” simpered Parkinson.

Harry didn’t like her, but only because she seemed to be some sort of sycophant for Malfoy. But he didn’t really like any of the Slytherin girls.

Bulstrode reminded him of Dudley in demeanor and shape. Daphne Greengrass who was by far the prettiest girl amongst the Slytherin first years seemed like she might be nice but she spent all of her time with Tracey Davis and occasionally Pansy Parkinson too.

The boys weren’t much better. Blaise was half-decent as long as you didn’t make a fool of yourself within range of his sense of humor, as his disdain was universal, and Theodore Nott was quiet and didn’t bother Harry (or anyone else for that matter) much, although he never hesitated to laugh at him or take part in Malfoy’s mocking.

Harry had taken an involuntary crash course in Wizarding politics, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Also, he knew Sirius wasn’t late because his greatcoat was hanging off his chair. But where was he?

“I doubt it,” said Malfoy, rubbing his chin. “I owled Mother after the Feast, and she said—“

“Sweet Cissy wrote about little ol’ me?”

Half the class squawked and shrieked as Sirius rippled into vision between Malfoy and Parkinson. “I’d be fascinated to hear what she said, but you’d probably lose house points for disrespecting a professor.”

Malfoy sputtered as Sirius strode up to the front of the room. Harry grinned and looked at Blaise, who deigned to look amused. Sirius took roll, and when he got to Harry’s name flashed him a warm grin that did not go unnoticed by his classmates. Nor did it when Blaise received a wink.

“So,” said Sirius when he was done. “The Dark Arts. You may think you already know about the Dark Arts,” here Sirius looked heavily at Malfoy and for some reason, Theodore Nott, “but I’m here to tell you, you don’t. I do because I’ve studied them, and fought them. The Dark Arts are not just a set of spells the Ministry has arbitrarily labeled. They are intent: to cause harm for its own sake. This is the first and foremost lesson of the Dark Arts: evil is as evil does.”

The first years were silent, and Sirius looked at each of them grimly in turn. Then he smiled. “But it’s not all gloom and doom, we’re going to have some fun in this class, I solemnly swear.”

Sirius’ wand appeared in his hand with a simple flourish. “We’re going to start with one of the most useful charms you will ever learn: _Lumos._ Please get out _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_ and turn to page fifteen.”

They all practiced the charm, but this time, it was Daphne, who Harry discovered went by Queenie to her friends, that managed the closest thing to a light. The tip of her wand glowed like one of the stickers Harry had once put up in his cupboard before they’d been taken out, and Sirius awarded her with a house point.

 As class was dismissed, Harry lagged behind to talk to Sirius.

“Siri—Professor Black,” Harry began.

“You can call me Sirius when no one’s around,” said Sirius with a conspiratorial grin and Harry relaxed. Sirius couldn’t be mad at him if he were saying that! “So, how’s the snake den?”

“It’s miserable,” moaned Harry. “The only half-decent bloke is Blaise, and he’s the snobbiest person I’ve ever met.”

“Right,” said Sirius, looking amused. “Well, you’ve got a class to get to, but come see me in my office tomorrow, quarter after three, we’ll talk. I have some insider information you might find useful.”

“Okay,” said Harry, and practically skipped out of the classroom. Sirius didn't hate him! He’d just been disappointed, which Harry could understand since he’d been disappointed too.

So maybe he wasn’t in Gryffindor and maybe Slytherin was awful, but he still had Sirius.

Overall Harry was very relieved to find out that he wasn’t miles behind everyone else. Lots of people in the other houses had come from Muggle families and, like him hadn’t had any idea they were witches and wizards. There was so much to learn that even the pureblood children in Slytherin didn’t have much of a head start, as practicing with their parents’ wands wasn’t the same as properly learning with their own, no matter what Nott kept trying to imply otherwise.

Friday was an important day for Harry. He finally managed to make his way up to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

“You made it,” said Blaise dryly as Harry sat down beside him.

“What have we got today?” Harry asked him as he poured honey onto his porridge.

“Double Potions with the Gryffindors,” said Blaise, his face screwing up in distaste. “Like some porridge with your honey, Potter?”

“Only a little,” quipped Harry and Blaise surprised him with a smirk. For some reason, only Blaise was anything approaching pleasant to him out of the Slytherin first years. The upperclassmen all ignored him, and most of his peers had adopted a policy of benign indifference, punctuated by mocking him whenever he gave away his ignorance of things magical, except Malfoy and his goons. Malfoy always leaped on an opportunity to mock Harry, not just for not knowing something magical, but for tripping, or his voice breaking, or anything at all.

Harry was beginning to hate Malfoy. Then he realized something.

“Potions?”

“Yes.”

“That’s Professor Snape’s class, right?”

“Oh, yes,” said Blaise, as if something of great import had just occurred to him. “You’re convinced he hates you because he gave you a headache with his eyes. Or is it that he gave you a headache with his eyes because he hates? I suppose either way we’ll find out.”

Harry was developing mixed feelings about confiding in Blaise.

“At the very least it should make for an interesting lesson,” said Blaise as he very carefully assembled a single bite on his fork with a little of everything from his plate. Blaise appeared to have very particular eating habits, but Harry wouldn’t bother trying to make sense of them.

Just then, the mail arrived. Harry had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circle the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages into their laps.

Hedwig hadn’t brought Harry anything so far. She sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school owls.

This morning was no different, she fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and cooed at Harry. Harry fed her some bacon from his plate, which she seemed to appreciate, and then flapped off for the owelry. And then Harry resumed brooding.

 _At least,_ he brightened up a bit as he realized: _I’ll get to see Ron and Neville._ He hadn’t been able to talk to them since the Sorting, and he was anxious to make sure they were still friends.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars around the walls.

When Ron and Neville stumbled in almost, late Harry tried to catch their eyes. Neville saw and smiled weakly at him, but Ron steadfastly ignored him.

Harry felt hurt, and then a bit angry. Then Snape came in from his office, and everyone faced the front.

Snape started the class by taking roll call, and like Flitwick had, he paused at Harry’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Harry Potter, our new— _celebrity.”_

Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle all sniggered into their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were beetle black and cold. So cold and empty they made Harry think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word—like Professor McGonagall, Snape had a gift for keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will truly understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death—if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

More silence followed this little speech. Harry and Blaise exchanged looks with even Blaise looking taken aback. Hermione Granger was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn’t a dunderhead.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?

Harry had no idea, and Hermione Granger’s hand shot straight into the air.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Harry.

Snape’s lips curled into a sneer.

“Tut, tut—fame clearly isn’t everything.”

He surveyed the class and then his eyes landed on Hermione Granger, who was desperate for him to call on her. He scowled at her so hard she wilted, her hand shrinking to the side of her head.

“Can no one enlighten me?” he asked, staring down his nose at the quailing Hermione Granger. Malfoy casually stuck his hand in the air. “Mr. Malfoy?

“It’s the base for the Draught of Living Death, sir,” Malfoy said smugly.

“Correct, a point to Slytherin,” said Snape. He glared at them all. “Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape continued talking. Things didn’t improve much for Harry after that. Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, who he seemed to like.

Harry tried to surreptitiously catch Neville’s attention a few times and almost messed his own potion up. But he was paying enough attention that he noticed Neville was about to add quills to the potion, which he wasn’t supposed to yet.

“Neville,” hissed Harry and Neville looked up. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what, Potter?” Snape seemed to materialize before Harry’s desk. “A point from Slytherin for—LONGBOTTOM PUT THOSE QUILLS DOWN!”

Neville jumped and nearly dropped the quills in the cauldron, but Snape snapped his wand out and Summoned them before they hit the brewing potion.

“You stupid, stupid boy. Can’t you read?” Snape loomed over Neville, who looked terrified. Then Snape turned on Ron, who was his partner. “And you! Weasely, why didn’t you say anything to Longbottom? Two points from Gryffindor.”

Then Snape turned to Harry, and his face contorted with something like rage before resolving into a sneer. “And as for you, Potter—two points to Slytherin for perhaps not being a _complete_ dunderhead.”

As he walked out of the dungeon an hour later, Harry had more mixed feelings. Apparently Snape’s desire to favor Slytherins was matched by his hatred for Harry. It meant that Harry was constantly berated, but Snape didn’t hesitate to award him points if he got something right. He also didn’t hesitate to take them, although it seemed to work out for a net gain.

Still, he wondered why Snape hated him at all. It wasn’t as though Harry had ever done anything to him. He’d just have to ask Sirius about it.

Harry tried to approach Ron and Neville after class but Ron just hurried them away, and Harry stopped, feeling foolish and more than a little hurt.

“You’re Harry Potter, right?” said the bossy girl behind him, and Harry turned. There was Granger, holding out her hand expectantly. “My name’s Hermione Granger. Nice to meet you.”

“Right, you too,” Harry said, shaking her hand somewhat reluctantly. “I’m sorry, but I have to go…”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said awkwardly. “I just… well. I’ll see you later, then.”

Harry was almost tempted to hang around and hear what Granger had to say, but not more than he wanted to see Sirius. So he took off, on a mission to find if the DADA classroom had moved since he was last there.

When he got to the door class was still in session, and Harry waited until the fifth years streamed out to go inside.

“Harry! You’re early,” Sirius said and after Harry had walked in.

“Sorry, I just really wanted to see you,” said Harry and Sirius ruffled his hair.

“It’s fine, just give me a few minutes to write some things down,” he said and beckoned Harry up into his office.

Sirius’s office was full, off books, trinkets, and toys. Or at least they looked like toys, most of them were small metal sculpture of animals that had glittering gems for eyes. Ornately carved animal skulls (one which might have been an ape’s or it might have been a man’s) and various artifacts that looked like they belonged in a museum dotted the rest of the bookshelves, and gleaming metal instruments sat next to strange floating glass spheres filled with unearthly lights. In one of them, Harry could swear he saw human figures swirling, with the closest silhouette almost resolved into a figure with long shadowy hair.

Harry took a seat in front of the massive desk Sirius worked behind. Sirius bent his head over his paperwork and set about writing notes, while Harry waited, trying not to tap his feet.

“There, all finished,” said Sirius, tapping the parchment with his wand so that it dried and rolled right up. “So, Harry, we haven’t been able to chat really since the Sorting and—“

“It’s not my fault!” protested Harry. “I didn’t want to be in Slytherin I really didn’t but Neville’s mum told him you just do what the hat tells you and—“

“It’s okay—it’s okay, Harry,” said Sirius soothingly. “I…. I know you didn’t choose your House, your House chose you, just like your wand. I’m sorry if I gave a different impression.”

“Okay, that’s good,” said Harry, feeling immensely relieved.

"Besides, Slytherin isn’t _entirely_ bad,” Sirius told him jovially. “My little brother was in Slytherin, and I’m somewhat fond of him. And so was my favorite cousin for that matter.”

Harry finally let the last of his stress at being sorted into Slytherin leave him. He hadn’t known that Sirius’s family had been in Slytherin and that knowledge was the most reassuring so far.

“So, you were saying that everyone was horrid, and young Blaise was the closest thing to a decent person in your house?” said Sirius, leaning back in his chair.

“Yes,” said Harry fervently. “I mean, I don’t know about everyone, because the upper years mostly ignore us, but Draco Malfoy is a bloody prat.”

“He takes after his father then,” said Sirius absently.

“His father? He only ever talks about his mother,” said Harry. “And the fancy clothes and stuff she buys him.”

“That’s because his father is in Azkaban,” said Sirius. And at Harry’s quizzical glance he added, “The Wizarding prison.”

“What for?” asked Harry, suddenly aflame with curiosity.

“For corruption and use of an Unforgivable, though it should be for far worse,” said Sirius flatly. Before Harry could ask more questions, Sirius cut him off. “Now, enough about the Malfoys. How are your other classes going?”

“Charms is fun, Herbology is messy,” Harry began listing them off, “but Professor Sprout is nice… Transfiguration is really hard and Professor McGonagall seems awfully smart but she’s very strict, and Potions… Potions is okay, but Professor Snape _hates_ me.”

“He hates you?” asked Sirius, and there was something about his tone that made Harry look down at his hands.

“I mean, he just doesn’t seem to think much of me, and when I first saw him at the Welcoming Feast my—my scar hurt.”

Sirius straightened up. “That's… Harry, are you certain?”

“Yes,” said Harry, although hesitantly. Sirius was acting awfully—well—serious. “Why’s that matter?”

“It means I’ll be having a talk with Dumbledore, certainly,” Sirius muttered. “But tell me, do you need anything? Anything at all?”

“I mean I can’t think of anything,” said Harry with a shrug. He was curious what Sirius was going to say to Dumbledore. He thought Sirius didn't like Dumbledore much, but since Dumbledore was the headmaster Sirius had apparently been willing to work under him, maybe that wasn't true. It was all very confusing, and Harry wanted to know, but he didn't know how to ask.

“Are you sure?” asked Sirius. "Anything at all--don't worry about what it is!"

“Well..." Harry's resistance wore down quickly in the face of Sirius's eagerness. "Malfoy gets letters and packages from home almost every day with sweets and his prissy hair supplies, and he makes fun of me for never getting any mail…” Harry trailed off meaningfully.

“Done and done!” said Sirius with an exuberant slap on his desk for emphasis. “I’ll arrange for some packages to come for you. Reg will have to send them, of course, since Professors aren’t supposed to play favorites. Not that I think we’ll be fooling anyone, but plausible deniability is always important!”

They sat and chatted for a little while longer before Harry had to leave because Sirius had another class to teach.

He told Harry to come by on Saturday, and they could have tea and just spend some time together.

“And maybe we can go visit Hagrid,” Sirius offered. Harry’s face fell, and Sirius looked at him with concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Does Hagrid hate me for being in Slytherin?” Harry remembered the look on Hagrid's face, far more closed off than Sirius's had been.

“Hagrid is… well, I’d say he’s a bit high-strung, how about that?” Sirius offered. “Lots of dark wizards have come out of Slytherin, but dark wizards have come from every other house too. Well, maybe not Hufflepuff. But I told you about my brother and my cousin, remember? So how about we stop by Hagrid’s for tea, and set things straight?”

If Sirius was sure of something, then Harry was too. He readily agreed.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but that was before he met Draco Malfoy. Malfoy could always be counted on to call Harry out on his ignorance of Wizarding customs or his failures in class. The only other person who seemed to catch Malfoy’s ire was Ron, who still refused to acknowledge Harry. It hurt most that Neville was following Ron's lead, both Neville and Ron knew things about the Wizarding world that Harry would never ask his housemates, not even Blaise, and Sirius was a professor, so despite the time he made for Harry, he did have a job to do. And there were still so many things about wizards that Harry didn't understand yet.

So it was with more than a little trepidation that Harry read the notice pinned up in the Slytherin common room about flying lessons. And they were paired with the Gryffindors, which meant Ron would be there ignoring him with Neville would be sheepishly following his lead.

And he had so been looking forward to flying.

All the purebloods had stories about flying. Malfoy talked about it the most, with almost all of his stories full of derring-do and ending with him being chased by Muggles in helicopters.       

Blaise would just smirk and stay silent barring a few snide comments, which was how he acted about most everything. Parkinson, Goyle, and Crabbe, however, ate Malfoy’s wild stories up. Only Nott seemed immune, and that was because he had his head in a book like usual.

Nott was actually quite tolerable when he was reading. For one thing, he totally ignored the world around him, including Harry. But on the rare occasions when he didn’t have his eyes glued to a page, he didn’t hesitate to take part in mocking Harry either.

Harry was starting to hate Slytherin. Especially since they (the purebloods) talked about Quidditch constantly, even the girls, and he didn't dare bring attention to his ignorance of yet another fundamental facet of Wizarding life. He knew it was a game played on broomsticks, but he’d already forgotten the specifics of all the rules Ron had told him on the Hogwarts Express.

Ron’s rebuffing still stung, but at least Harry made up with Hagrid, not that there was much making up to be done. Hagrid had been a bit leery but by the time the first cup of tea was out he’d warmed right back to Harry and offered him some rock cakes that were about as hard as rocks. Harry fancied he could still feel the itch of Hagrid's bushy beard from the bone-crushing hug he'd given Harry before he and Sirius went back up to the castle.

There was one thing about the visit that had been a bit odd, though. When Harry was playing with Fang, which mostly consisted of trying to avoid being swamped with drool while petting him, Sirius and Hagrid had a discussion about the mysterious parcel that Hagrid had picked up at Gringott's earlier that summer.

"What's in the third-floor corridor?" Harry asked after growing tired of Hagrid and Sirius conversing in low tones and exchanging significant looks punctuated by manly grunts and much throat clearing. Hagrid, in particular, could clear his throat in a way that sounded like a rockslide, or perhaps an avalanche of his rock cakes.

"Nothin' that concerns you, lad," said Hagrid, but Sirius was more forthcoming.

"Dumbledore's hidden something there," said Sirius while Hagrid waved his arms and hissed Sirius's name. "Come off it, Hagrid, that much information is harmless, and if you don't tell kids the truth then they're liable to try and find out themselves, and then you're in a whole mess of trouble."

Sirius winked at Harry, who grinned back at him. Sirius really was the absolute best, and he was right. 

"I suppose so," Hagrid grumbled. "But it's yer job on the line if Dumbledore finds out."

"My job's already on the line," Sirius laughed. "Anyway, Harry, Dumbledore's stashed something important up there and had a bunch of us put down protections on it, like an obstacle course. And Hagrid here supplied the first obstacle."

"And its name is Fluffy?" asked Harry. 

"Aye, he's a--" Hagrid started rumbling tearfully in reminiscence before Sirius cleared his throat. "Oh, right. Er--yeah, so Fluffy's mine. And yer not to go sneakin' on in there, you understan' me?"

"Why would I?" Harry asked a bit bemusedly. It not only sounded dangerous but if Sirius and Hagrid and all the teachers were helping Dumbledore hide something, then it was something that ought to remain hidden. Harry might be curious (and all in favor of a good adventure) but he wasn't stupid.

"See? If you just tell kids enough then there's no element of adventure," said Sirius. "Once you take that out, there's no reason to go braving danger. Now, enough about that--Harry, why don't you tell Hagrid what you thought about your classes."

Harry left Hagrid's hut knowing he had not just one but two adults in his life who seemed to genuinely care about him. If it weren’t for his housemates, and Malfoy more precisely, then Harry would say without a doubt that Hogwarts was perfect.

 

* * *

 

When he ate breakfast the morning before flying lessons, Harry felt unusually nervous and barely ate anything.

“Worried, Potter?” asked Blaise, which attracted Nott’s attention.

“No,” said Harry quickly and Nott smirked.

“Careful you don’t fall on your face. Wouldn’t want to overshadow your old scar with a new one.”

Harry scowled at Nott and defiantly ate his food. Nott wasn’t as gleefully cruel as Malfoy, but he wasn’t exactly pleasant, and he was just as bigoted as the rest of them. Blaise, for all his relative kindness toward Harry, believed in blood supremacy too. The girls didn’t bring up so much, except for Parkinson, but she only did so when she was trying to impress Malfoy.

According to Sirius lots of wizards had these blood-based prejudices. Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that, magic seemed so wonderful on the surface, but it was full of darkness. The kind of darkness that left orphans behind.

Across the Great Hall, he watched Neville get a package, a small orb that glowed red when he held it. Malfoy was over there goading Ron and tried to steal the orb from Neville, but Professor McGonagall quickly put a stop to that.

“You’ll probably be fine, Potter,” Blaise said, which was about as reassuring as Blaise seemed capable of being.

“Thanks,” he said even though the words didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. “Why aren’t you worried?”

“Because I don’t care,” said Blaise, somewhat bemused that Harry had to ask. “Flying is the least of what a wizard can do. Now if we were learning to fly without brooms, by magic alone, _that_ would be something worth learning.”

“Wizards can do that?” asked Harry. On the other side of Blaise, Nott snorted, and Harry glowered at him.

“None have that I ever heard of,” said Blaise. “But I never cared to look either. Finish up. Class starts soon.”

Harry ate as much as he could stomach and then got up to walk with Blaise to class.

 

* * *

 

By the time three-thirty that afternoon rolled around, Harry had lost most of his nervousness about flying. Instead, he was starting to worry about homework, as there was so much of it!

The Slytherins got to the practice spot first and milled around waiting for the Gryffindors and their flight instructor.

“Flying isn’t difficult for real wizards, of course,” Malfoy was saying. “Everyone knows that.”

“For pureblood wizards, you mean,” Parkinson put in meaningfully glancing at Harry. They smirked at him while Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott sniggered.

“Piss off, Malfoy,” Harry snapped.

“Oh, good one, Potter! I’ll just go do that then,” Malfoy laughed mockingly.

Harry was saved from escalating the conflict when the Gryffindors all came down the sloping lawn at that moment, with their teacher, Madam Hooch. She had short, gray hair, and yellow eyes like a hawk.

“Well, what are you all waiting for?” she barked. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up.”

Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old, and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

Madam Hooch told them how to get the broom up, and Harry found to his pleasant surprise that it came easily to him. Then she showed him how to mount the broom, and almost laughed aloud when she told Malfoy he’d apparently been doing it wrong for years.

Then disaster struck. Neville had lost control, spiraling into the air until he fell and broke his wrist. After he had been hustled off to Madam Pomfrey and the infirmary, Malfoy began making fun of him.

“Did you see his face, the great lump?”

The rest of Slytherin, minus Harry, began laughing, even Blaise.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” snapped Parvati Patil.

“Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom,” said Parkinson. “Never thought _you’d_ like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

“Look,” said Malfoy, darting forward and snatching something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s Gran sent him.

“Give it here, Malfoy,” said Harry quietly. Everyone stopped talking to watch. Even the Gryffindors seemed to know this was a confrontation that had been brewing since Harry and Malfoy first met.

Malfoy smiled nastily. “I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find—how about up a tree?”

“Give it _here!_ ” Harry yelled, but Malfoy had leaped on his broomstick and taken off.

Malfoy hadn’t been lying earlier; he could fly well. Hovering with the topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it, Potter!”

“No!” shouted Granger. “Madam Hooch told us not to move—you’ll get us all in trouble.”

“Oh, who cares, just let them go,” said Blaise and Harry tuned the rest out.

Blood pounding in his ears, he mounted the broom and kicked hard against the ground and up, up he soared; air rising through his hair, and his robes whipping out behind him—and in a rush of fierce joy he realized he’d found something he could do without being taught—this was, this was _wonderful_. He pulled his broomstick up a little to take it even higher and heard screams and gasps of girls and some boys back on the ground.

Harry turned his broomstick sharply to face Malfoy in midair. Malfoy looked stunned.

“Give it here,” Harry called. “Or I’ll knock you off that broom.:”

“Oh yeah?” said Malfoy, trying to sneer, but looking worried.

Harry knew, somehow, what to do. He leaned forward and grasped the broom tightly in both hands, and it shot toward Malfoy like a javelin. Malfoy only just got out of the way in time; Harry made a sharp about-face and held the broom steady. A few people below were clapping.

“No Crabbe and Goyle up here to save your prissy face, Malfoy,” Harry called out.

The same thought seemed to have struck Malfoy.

“Catch if you can, then!” he shouted, and he threw the glass ball high into the air and streaked back toward the ground.

Harry saw, as though in slow motion, the ball rise in the air and then start to fall. He leaned forward and pointed his broom handle down—next second he was gathering speed in a steep dive, racing the ball—wind whistled in his ears mingled with the screams of people watching—he stretched out his hand—a foot from the ground he caught it, just in time to pull his broom straight, and he toppled gently onto the grass with the ball clutched safely in his fist.

“HARRY POTTER!”

His heart sank faster than he’d just dived. Professor McGonagall was running towards them. He got to his feet, trembling.

“ _Never_ —in all my time at Hogwarts—“

Professor McGonagall was almost speechless with shock, and her glasses flashed furiously, “—how _dare_ you—might have broken your neck—“

“It wasn’t his fault, Professor—“

“Be quiet, Miss Patil—“

“But Malfoy—“

“That’s _enough,_ Miss Granger. Potter, follow me now.”

Harry thought he was going to get expelled. Instead, he received an extremely stern lecture on obeying teacher instructions and curbing his self-destructive instincts. Then, when Professor McGonagall had finished, she sighed as though greatly troubled.

“I am very sorry to do this, but Potter, we’re going to have to talk to Professor Snape.”

His expulsion was all but guaranteed. Glumly, his legs numb, he trudged after Professor McGonagall down to the dungeons and opened the door to the Potion’s classroom.

“Severus, may I borrow you for a minute?”

Snape looked at McGonagall and then at Harry and his countenance darkened.

“Of course, Professor McGonagall. This lot at least can be trusted left to their own devices,” he said in a tone that promised bloody murder, or at least detention, to anyone who dared prove him wrong.

“Now,” said Snape, closing the door to the room. “What was Potter done that merits you pulling me away from my NEWT students?”

McGonagall pursed her lips, suddenly reluctant, as though she was fighting herself.

"Please don't expel me!” Harry burst out suddenly, and both teachers stared at him.

“Expel you? Boy, I’m going to help you! As much as it will come to pain me dearly, I’m sure,” said McGonagall and turned to Snape. “Severus, I’ve found you a Seeker.”

"Slytherin already has a Seeker,” said Snape after a pregnant pause. “And as I recall first years aren’t allowed brooms, and I refuse to make any exceptions, even for our resident… celebrity.”

Harry bristled at the word, but McGonagall’s grip on his shoulder tightened.

“Oh, I’m well aware,” said McGonagall, “but the boy’s a natural, one of the best I’ve ever seen. And I’ve _never_ seen anything like the move he just pulled. He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive, and didn’t even scratch himself.”

Snape looked at Harry, and the ball clutched in his hand, and for once his gaze was inscrutable. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because as much as it pains me whenever Slytherin wins the Quidditch Cup, I could not in good conscience allow a student--any student--to pass by an opportunity to develop and demonstrate their potential. And he has potential, Severus; he only needs a chance to develop it.”

Snape looked at Professor McGonagall rather taken aback, and then his eyes narrowed. “Black.”

“Does not make decisions for me,” she said sharply. Harry glanced back and forth between them. Sometimes he got the impression that the other professors didn't much care for Sirius, but Snape's disdain was sharper than any disapproval Harry heard from Professor McGonagall. 

“But the Headmaster does.” Snape was sneering, but now he looked at Harry with narrowed, beetle black eyes. Harry felt like they saw through him. “I will deal with my students as I deem appropriate, without interference.”

“Of course,” said McGonagall. “Pardon, my presumption.”

"No need,” said Snape airily. “You have quite possibly done me a favor, as Mr. Higgs is not overly fond of the position, and his OWL studies could benefit from enhanced focus. Potter, I want to see you before dinner, exactly one hour from now, out where you performed this… feat of flight. Do _not_ be late.”

Harry nodded anxiously. He couldn’t believe he wasn’t in trouble!

“Now if you will excuse me,” said Snape sourly. “I have students to attend to.”

The door closed in their faces and McGonagall sighed.

“Well, Mr. Potter, try not to make me regret this too much,” she said. Then she smiled at him. “Your father would have been proud. He was an excellent Quidditch player himself.”

“Really?” It was occurring to Harry for the first time that most of his professors might very well have taught his parents. Sirius would certainly know which ones!

         

* * *

 

“You’re _joking_.”

It was dinnertime, although a bit early for most, but Harry was hungry after flying. He had just finished telling Blaise what had happened when he’d left the grounds with Professor McGonagall.

Blaise was looking at Harry in complete disbelief. A couple of seats down from them Nott was pretending to read a book while he ate but was clearly eavesdropping. Harry could tell because he hadn’t seen Nott turn a single page while he recited his story for Blaise.

Harry didn’t especially care what Nott overheard. In fact, Harry wanted Nott to hear how Harry was better on a broom than any of the purebloods. Maybe it’d help get it through his thick head that his prejudices were built on lies. Sirius had explained further what it meant to be pureblood from Harry's crash course on the Hogwarts Express, and Harry had learned far more than he wanted to from his housemates, but Harry knew he still had more to learn. Especially if he wanted to prove them all wrong.

“Another Head of House took you to see our Head of House to discuss your raw potential as a Seeker, and our House Head agreed to test you out?” Blaise's disbelief was plain on his face, even if his tone hadn't made it clear.

Harry nodded around a mouthful of steak and kidney pie.

“And then Professor Snape decided you were good enough to replace our current Seeker, who was decent enough not to fight this because you’re simply _that_ much better than him?” Blaise finished.

"And he's got OWLs this year," said Harry as he shoveled in another mouthful.

“Potter, it sounds utterly ludicrous.”

Harry swallowed, and opened his mouth to respond when a hulking boy with buckteeth came up to him and clapped him on the shoulder. The force of his hand nearly sent Harry face first into his plate, though he didn’t think it was malice. The huge teenager just didn’t know his own strength.

“Potter,” Flint grunted. Harry had met the Slytherin Quidditch captain when he’d met with Professor Snape, and they put Harry through his paces. “Professor Snape says he got special exempen—exempt—permission from Dumbledore for you to fly. We start practice next week.”

Then he moved on to sit with the rest of the upperclassmen.

“Merlin’s beard,” said Blaise in a tone of bemused awe. “You weren’t lying.”

"Why would I lie about that?” asked Harry, more than a little offended. Blaise was cut off by the arrival of Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle.

“Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting the train back to the Muggles?”

“You’re a lot braver now that you’re back on the ground, and you’ve got your little friends with you,” said Harry coolly. There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

“I’d take you on in anything on my own,” said Malfoy. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard’s duel.”

Harry stared at him blankly.

“What’s the matter? Never heard of a Wizard’s duel before I suppose?”

Harry wanted to deny this, but he couldn’t. It was just another one of those Wizarding things he didn't know about. He was about to stand up and tell Malfoy where he could shove his prissy attitude, but Blaise stopped him.

“Potter,” said Blaise, who sounded very amused. This had already been established as a warning sign for the Slytherin first years, as Blaise being amused meant someone was imminent danger of humiliation, typically self-inflicted. “Take the challenge.”

“I accept,” Harry said without hesitation, and Malfoy smirked.

“Who’s your second?” he drawled.

Harry glanced at Blaise, who shook his head.

“No, I don’t care to involve myself. You might ask one of your new teammates, though. I believe they’d be rather loathe to see their newest player… incapacitated.” Blaise's dark eyes were sly, his white teeth flashing in a wicked smile.

A grin spread its way slowly across Harry’s face as Malfoy demanded to know “What teammates?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear?” asked Harry, now wise to Blaise’s game. “I joined the Quidditch team.”

"…What?” Malfoy looked stunned. So did Crabbe and Goyle, but the dumbstruck look wasn't out of place on their faces.

“Youngest Seeker in a century, right here,” said Harry pointing to himself with his fork. “So, Blaise, do you think I should ask Flint?”

“Honestly, I would ask Bletchley," said Blaise conversationally. "I think he has the highest marks.”

“All right,” said Harry as he stood up. “You should pick a second too, Malfoy.”

“Now—now just hold on a minute, Potter,” Malfoy stammered. “You—you can’t have an upper-year for a second!”

“Au contraire,” said an ever-helpful Blaise. “He can pick anyone who will accept the position.”

Malfoy looked like he’d swallowed a lemon and his face was bright pink. “FINE! I concede.”

“Tsk, tsk. It seems the Malfoy honor isn’t what it once was,” said Blaise.

“You should watch yourself, Zabini,” said Malfoy darkly. “Allying yourself with _him_ , you never know who you might anger.”

Blaise sat up straighter. “Somehow I think the benefits of befriending the Boy Who Lived will outweigh whatever inconsequential anger there might be from… others.”

The last word was laced so much disdain even Crabbe and Goyle seemed to notice.

“He has a point,” Nott interjected mildly, not taking his eyes off his book.

“Theo!” Malfoy protested, looking betrayed, actually clutching his heart like an old woman, which made Harry snicker.

Nott merely raised an eyebrow at him, until Malfoy finally left in a sullen huff.

Blaise and Harry looked at each other and broke out into sniggers. It was the first time Harry had really seen Blaise laugh, and it felt good.

Only, now something was starting to trouble Harry.

“Blaise, are you only my friend because of who I am?” asked Harry, somewhat afraid of the answer.

“… Don’t ruin the moment, Harry.” It was the first time Blaise had called him by his name rather than his surname. Which Harry supposed was as much of an answer as he would ever get out of him.

During dessert, Harry had another visitor. He was busy shoveling treacle tart into his mouth when someone cleared their throat behind him.

He turned around and saw Neville standing there, scuffing his foot on the ground.

“Neville, you’re all right!” Harry was happy to see he didn't have a scratch on him.

"Yeah, Madam Pomfrey patched me up in no time.” Neville was looking at his shoes like he couldn’t meet Harry’s eyes, but he was talking to Harry, so that was a positive step. Harry was feeling good enough to be magnanimous with how Neville had been treating him.

“Good, I'm glad,” said Harry. “Oh! I have your ball.”

He handed the small sphere to Neville, who sighed in relief as he took it. He offered Harry a bashful smile.

“Thanks, Harry, Gran would send me a Howler if she knew I lost my Remembrall already,” said Neville. He held the ball in his hands and twiddled his thumbs. “Um… how’re you doing?”

“Well enough,” said Harry. He wasn’t as angry with Neville as he was with Ron. “Want to sit down?”

Nott broke into a fit of coughing, and even Blaise was giving Harry an incredulous look.

“No, no I can’t,” said Neville looking up. He was looking at the Gryffindor table, where he was getting some questioning stares, and one glower from a very irritated looking redhead.

Harry scowled.

“Fine,” he said, and Neville squirmed.

“But if you wanted to maybe do some homework together or something, let me know,” he said in a rush, and then took off for the Gryffindor table.

Harry turned back to his dinner, a bit nonplussed but at least Neville was making an effort.

“I didn’t know you fancied boys,” said Blaise apropos of seemingly nothing. Harry spluttered, and Nott didn’t just cough, this time, he almost choked. “Your taste is abysmal, though, which does seem to be in-character.”

“ _What_?” Harry squawked once he'd recovered his breath.

“Well that little song and dance you just did with Longbottom,” said Blaise, one eyebrow elegantly quirked. “Tells a tale all its own. So, are you going to ‘study’ with him? Or just skip straight to ‘star-gazing’ in the Astronomy Tower?”

Nott was clearing his throat, recovering from his coughing/choking fit, and not even pretending to read anymore. He kept glancing at Harry as surreptitiously as possible, which wasn’t very. Harry did his best to ignore Nott, which was easy when Blaise was casually causing a crisis with his wild accusations.

“Neville and I aren’t like that,” said Harry sternly and Blaise shrugged.

“Whatever you say.”

“I mean I like girls,” said Harry, who wasn’t actually sure about that. It wasn’t that he didn’t like girls, but he just thought of them as… well, sort of there. People. He knew someday when he was older that would change, but it hadn’t yet.

To say he liked boys, though! It was the sort of thing Dudley, and his cronies had only begun to start taunting him with before Harry discovered he was a wizard.

“Well, you might want to watch yourself around Longbottom,” Blaise went on. “It seems the lump has a crush on you.”

“Don’t call him that—wait. You don’t care about that kind of thing?” Harry asked slowly. 

“Why would I?” asked Blaise with a scornful look.

“Or you?” Harry leaned forward to look at Nott.

Nott cleared his throat. “Or me what?”

“Maybe you should see the matron, Nott, you seem like you’re coming down with something,” Blaise drawled, and Nott flushed.

“You don’t care about… you know…” Harry gestured vaguely. "Boys and boys?"

“Of course not,” Nott said shortly, and then closed his book and stood up.

Harry watched him leave, curious what had just prompted him to take off when he’d barely eaten. Then he shrugged and turned back to Blaise.

Blaise looked at him placidly; one eyebrow cocked almost mockingly at Harry. Harry wondered if Blaise practiced moving his eyebrows in a mirror, he deployed them so frequently.

“Yes, Potter?”

Harry groaned in frustration. “How can you just—you guys are always going on about blood purity, but you don’t care about…” 

“Homosexuality? No, although I suppose it’s a bit inconvenient when a bloodline dwindles down to one or two heirs, that’s no impediment to alternative arrangements.” Blaise was frowning now. “Why is this so confusing to you?”

“Because… because it’s the same thing! Muggles—”

Blaise sneered. “Oh. _Muggles_.”

“See! That right there,” Harry snapped. “It’s the same thing. Except Muggles might say: Oh. A _queer_.”

Harry sneered the word, trying to channel all the disgust he’d heard in Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s voices when they said the word.

“Well that’s because Muggles are stupid, inferior creatures, with stupid, inferior concerns,” Blaise said, and Harry wanted to punch him.

“It’s the same thing,” he muttered instead. He looked at his plate, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. He wasn’t happy about making the Quidditch team and embarrassing Malfoy anymore either. Now he was just tired.

Maybe he’d see if Sirius was in his office.

Harry got up from the table and left without a word. Blaise said nothing either and continued eating as though he hadn’t even noticed Harry had left.

 

* * *

 

It was late that night when a loud thump woke Harry from a sound sleep. He stared up at the canopy of his ancient four-poster bed and listened.

“Crabbe you imbecile, you’re going to wake everyone up.”

“Sorry, Draco.”

There was more muffled scuffling and then the sound of a door opening and closing. Harry poked his head out of his bed. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s beds all had their curtains drawn, but Harry would get his whole bottomless bag of galleons that they had just snuck out. He eased out of bed and started to slip on his shoes.

“Where do you think you’re going, Potter?”

Harry looked up sharply to see Blaise staring at him.

“Following them,” said Harry as if this were obvious.

 “Why on earth would you do that?”

Blaise was talking casually, as though their fight at dinner hadn’t happened. Part of Harry was still angry, but mostly it felt easier just to slide back into their friendship, or whatever Blaise thought of it as.

“He’s up to something,” said Harry, not having to specify whom he was talking about.

“So what if he is? Following him only risks you getting in trouble.”

“Don’t talk him out of it, Zabini,” said Nott sleepily from behind his curtains. “I think it’s a fantastic idea for Potter to sneak out and roam the halls at night when he can barely find his way between classes.”

“Shut up, Nott,” Blaise said amiably. He turned to Harry. “Just let Malfoy and Weasely do whatever it is they’re going to do and when Filch catches them that’ll be the end of it.”

“What is Malfoy planning to do to Ron?” asked Harry.

“Same nonsense he tried to pull with you,” said Blaise sounding disgusted. “A wizard’s duel—what a stupid idea. We barely know enough spells to tickle each other let alone properly duel.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Nott. “My father—“

“Best not talk too much about what your father might have taught you,” said Blaise sharply. “You’ll start to sound like Malfoy, always going on about his mother.”

“That’s only because _his_ father’s in Azkaban,” said Nott, but he subsided.

“Right,” said Harry. “Well, I’m going to see what Malfoy’s up to.”

“I told you, he’s dueling Weasely and Longbottom,” said Blaise exasperatedly. “Besides, how are you going to find him? You’ve dallied long enough they could be just about anywhere in the castle.”

“You never said anything about Neville,” protested Harry.

“Maybe if you ever bothered to have a civil exchange with Malfoy you’d know,” said Blaise. “He was only going on about it all evening.”

“Why would I want to be nice to Malfoy?” asked Harry and Blaise rolled his eyes.

“Because his family is unbelievably wealthy even by our standards? And money is power? Someday Malfoy will be head of his family, and it would behoove anyone to be on his good side when that happens.”

Harry almost rolled his eyes. He didn’t care about how much money Malfoy had. In fact, not only did Harry have a great deal of money, but Sirius clearly had more money than God, or possibly even the Queen.

“That’s awfully pragmatic of you, Zabini,” Nott chimed in. “Practically mercenary. Did your mother teach you that?”

“She taught me other things,” said Blaise and for the first time ever he sounded angry to Harry. “Things that might make you a bit more respectful when you talk to me.”

“I’m quivering with fear,” said Nott but he sounded more full of bravado than real bravery.

Blaise turned back to Harry and raised one elegant eyebrow as if to ask, what are you still doing out of bed?

“I bet you know where Malfoy’s going,” said Harry to Blaise, who scowled.

“Let’s say I did, why should I tell you?” asked Blaise. “You’ll only get in trouble as well.”

“No, I won’t,” protested Harry.

“Just let him go,” said Nott. “I bet Malfoy namby-pambied out anyway.”

“Fine,” said Blaise with a huff. “But just because I want to go to sleep. They’re meeting in the trophy room.”

“Thanks, Blaise,” said Harry and darted out the door into the common room. He was pretty sure he heard Blaise telling him he was a twit on his way out, but he was too busy walking into the common room.

Where Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle were all playing Exploding Snap right next to the fire in the otherwise unoccupied space. Just like Nott had predicted.

“Potter!” Malfoy sounded surprised and nervous. “What are you doing here?”

“Seeing what you were up to,” said Harry accusingly. “What with challenging Ron to a Wizard’s Duel.”

“How did you… _Blaise_ ,” snarled Malfoy. Then he leaned back and smirked. “As you can see, though, Potter, I’m doing nothing more than playing a late night game with my friends.”

“Well, I’m going to tell him you’re a little coward,” said Harry.

Malfoy almost hissed with anger before he reigned it in and laughed. He was probably aiming for nasty, but mostly it just came off obnoxious.

“Go ahead, Potter. It’s not like there’s anything from stopping me telling a prefect about you sneaking out.”

“You’d only lose your own house points,” pointed out Harry and he saw Malfoy frown. “And people would know you’re a snitch.”

“A Snitch?” asked Crabbe in confusion, but Malfoy didn't let a little thing like Muggle slang he didn't understand slow him down.

“Well, then I’m not letting you out,” said Malfoy, and gestured sharply at Crabbe and Goyle. The two boys leaped to their feet and moved in front of Harry. They crossed their arms and smirked at Harry like twin mocking gargoyles. Harry clenched his fists.

“Let me out, Malfoy,” snapped Harry.

“Why?” asked Malfoy, sounding honestly baffled, “they’re not even members of your house, and Weasely despises you for being one of us. What could you possibly gain by being his friend?”

“Why does everything have to be so… so…” Harry cast about for a word and remembered what Nott had said. “So mercenary with you people! Is nobody in Slytherin friends just for the sake of being friends?”

“Draco and Vince are my friends,” Goyle piped up and then reddened when he became the focus of attention. Crabbe clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder while Malfoy looked smugly at Harry.

“Oh. Well. Good,” Harry said.

The tension had been defused enough that none of them seemed willing to pick the fight back up.

“So, not going to run out and tell Weasely how I’m a _coward_ ,” Malfoy sneered.

“No, I guess I’m not,” said Harry, the will to fight draining out of him. It was late, and he was tired. “I’m going back to bed.”

As he turned around the sounds of Exploding Snap started up again.

When Harry re-entered his dorm both Blaise, and Nott’s canopies were closed. He slid into his bed and sighed.

“Called it,” said Nott from behind his curtains.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” Blaise groaned.

Harry crawled under his covers without comment. It didn’t take him long to drift off this time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> somehow when checking the hpwiki I missed that Pucey was already cast as a white kid and Bletchley would have been the opportune race bend. But I prefer it this way (as in by the time I realized my mistake the amount of effort spent correcting it was disproportionate to the impact it would have) so.... have at it, this chapter has one of my favorite scenes

The next morning at breakfast Harry got the first of the care-packages Sirius had arranged for. Only it wasn’t just a care package.

Harry was in the middle of demolishing a plateful of blood-pudding, fried eggs, and bacon rashers, all smothered in enough ketchup that even Blaise, who had grown used to Harry’s dining habits much as Harry had grown to his, had to comment, when a pair of owls swooped down to land in front of Harry. One of them was a screech owl carrying an oblong package nearly longer than Harry was tall, and the other, a regal looking eagle owl, was carrying a basket.

The eagle owl landed the basket delicately between platters of breakfast food and perched upon it. It gazed at Harry with half-lidded, sedate eyes, fluffed its wings, and seemed to sight.

Immediately after that the screech owl almost dumped the larger packaged in Harry’s breakfast, and by proxy Blaise’s too before wheeling about to fly off. Harry managed to catch the odd parcel first though barely, and apologetically maneuvered it off the table.

“Potter, you need to open that, right now,” Blaise said, staring at the oblong package nestled in Harry’s lap.

Harry immediately began tearing at the packaging—Blaise might not be the most trustworthy person, but he was an excellent indicator as he rarely hid what he thought. And Blaise apparently thought whatever was in the package was something good.

Harry realized that all the first years were staring at him, along with a few of the upperclassmen farther down the table. Like they knew what it his package was…

“Potter, you lucky sod,” Nott swore as Harry finished pulling the broom out of its packaging.

“That’s a Nimbus 2000!” Malfoy gasped, looking torn between awe and outrage as Harry held up the broom.

“There’s a note,” Blaise said, snatching it from the packaging while Harry stared at the broom.

“Wait, no—Blaise give me that,” Harry protested, but it was too late.

“Says it’s from… That's odd. There’s only a paw print,” Blaise told the first years sitting near them. “Oh, here's a postscript with actual words, how supremely convenient. 'Dear Harry, we haven’t met yet, but from one Slytherin to another, do us proud. R. A. B.'”

That must be Sirius’s brother, Regulus, and Harry a rush of bittersweet warmth filled his chest. Harry looked up at the professor’s table, just in time to catch Sirius winking at him. Sirius didn’t usually attend meals, but today he’d been there when Harry came up. This must have been why.

Harry beamed back at him. He belonged, not just to a world full of literal magic, but to a family, or something like it. One that didn’t hate him like the Dursley, a family that might not be his blood but still something, and more than he’d ever had before.

Sirius was sitting next to the attractive, dark-skinned witch again, but Harry didn’t feel one bit of jealousy. Not with his brand new broom in his hands.

The upperclassmen, or at least the Quidditch team, were abuzz with the news of Harry’s new broom, which was apparently a recently released top of the line affair. Harry set it aside next to him and turned towards the basket with the patiently waiting eagle owl.

“Hello,” Harry said politely as he would to Hedwig, and the eagle owl fluffed it wings briefly. “Would you like some bacon?”

The owl eyed him contemptuously, and then suddenly took off. Harry took the basket he’d left and investigated it.

“What’s in there, Potter?” asked Nott, almost friendly-like, suspiciously so. Ever since the revelation earlier that Harry was on the Quidditch team there’d been a shift in how the others treated him. Well, not in Malfoy’s case, but everyone else’s.

At least Nott trying to butter him up was better than Nott making fun of him, but Harry preferred it when Nott had his head stuck in a book and ignored the world around him.

“Treats,” Harry answered honestly. A collection of sweets and pastries, with some candied fruit too. Some things moved, wiggling or dancing, while others gleamed like they were trapped in glass shimmering with bright colors, and the entire thing looked delicious.

“Better not let Goyle or Crabbe see that,” Blaise said, casting a calculating glance at Harry. Crabbe and Goyle had a tendency to wander in late for breakfast and then promptly gorge an immense amount of food in a very short amount of time. “This is Honeyduke’s Premiere Assortment.”

“So?” Harry asked as he picked up the only candy he recognized, a single squirming chocolate frog, the only one in the basket. He opened it and stared at the card.

“Solomon's Seal! Is that _Agrippa_?” gasped Nott. It was the most emotion that Harry had ever seen out of the other boy.

“I guess so,” Harry said slowly. He remembered Ron mentioning he had needed an Agrippa card to complete his set. Maybe it was a rare card? He wondered how Sirius got the frog knowing what card was in it.

He looked up again at Sirius, who waggled his eyebrows before turning to something Professor Flitwick said.

"Professor Black seems to really like you,” said Blaise with a speculative gleam in his eyes.

"He and my dad were best friends when they went here,” Harry said honestly, still examining the basket of treats. Then he winced. They weren’t supposed to know this was from Sirius, and he might as well have just come out and said it.

“My mother said he was _expelled_ ,” Malfoy sneered. “His wand was snapped, and he had to finish his education at Durmstang.”

Harry stiffened, his chest hot with anger. However, he didn't know if what Malfoy said was true, but he did remember Ollivander mentioning a wand of Sirius’s that got snapped.

“Piss off, Malfoy,” Harry bit out, and to Harry’s immense surprise Malfoy did so, subsiding with only a grumble.

The reason why landed on his shoulder a moment later, a hand as heavy as an anvil.

“Nice broom, Potter,” Flint told him with a predatory grin. “Looking forward to seeing it in action.”

Not just the Slytherin first years had taken notice of Harry’s broom. The Ravenclaws sitting across from them did too, along with the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors. A particularly intense came from a handsome young man at the Gryffindor table, he stared at Harry from across the Great Hall long enough to make him feel nervous.

“Slytherin has won every House Cup for the past eight years,” Flint added with a squeeze of Harry’s shoulder like a tightening vise. “We’re gonna keep up that tradition.”

It seemed less like encouragement than it did a threat. Harry swallowed, his throat suddenly dry as Flint walked away.

“Better not screw up, Potter,” Malfoy jeered at him.

“Oh, shut up, Malfoy,” said Tracey Davis with a look of disgust. Beside her, Daphne Greengrass was looking disdainfully at Malfoy as well. “Unless you _want_ Slytherin to lose?”

Malfoy’s mouth worked and even Harry was a bit speechless. The girls typically stayed out of their spats, except for Parkinson on occasion. Davis coming to Harry’s defense was a pleasant surprise.

“Potter was a natural on a broom,” added Nott also to Harry’s surprise. “And we all know it was undeniably his first time flying.”

The comment was said so mildly that if Harry hadn’t known that Nott was a pureblood supremacist, it wouldn’t come off as sarcastic. However, Harry did know that, and he bristled.

“Almost as though it’s talent that matters, and not blood,” Harry snapped.

“Said the full-blooded wizard,” Nott rejoined. “Little better than a half-blood, mind you, but you certainly aren’t a mudblood.”

Davis gasped, Malfoy smirked, Greengrass glanced worriedly at the professors’ table, and Harry blinked in confusion.

“A what?” Harry asked. It didn’t sound good, but Greengrass was hissing at Nott.

“Keep your voice down you idiot! You’ll lose us House points if anyone overhears you.”

Nott, suitably chastised, glowered at Harry.

“Blood that isn’t pure is mud,” said Blaise as reasonably as if he was discussing the weather on the Great Hall’s ceiling. When Harry glared at him, he shrugged innocently. “Although typically not a word bandied about in mixed company.”

“Or in front of Professor Snape,” said Greengrass. “He _hates_ it.”

“Professor Snape has to keep up appearances,” said Malfoy in a knowing tone.

“He should take a shower once in a while then,” Harry muttered and to his delight Blaise choked on his pumpkin juice. Even Nott and the girls snickered, though Malfoy was glowering at him. Harry offered him a winning smile, and they all laughed harder when it only made Malfoy glower more.

Slytherin was turning out to be… complex. Not all good or bad, nothing entirely black and white, although Harry would never back down from fighting all this blood-based bigotry. Just complicated, shades of gray, as it seemed most things were the more Harry saw of the Wizarding world.

When Crabbe and Goyle joined them at the table, accompanied by a harassed looking Pansy Parkinson and an even more harried looking Milicent Bulstrode (Harry had a feeling Bulstrode’s cat, Abelard, was involved given the livid scratch marks on both of them) they immediately zeroed in on Harry’s basket. Harry fancied he could see Crabbe and Goyle’s eyes literally light up.

Whether it was the way everyone had laughed at his joke and then laughed at Malfoy, or just because he wanted to head trouble off at the pass, Harry asked Crabbe and Goyle if they wanted anything from the basket. It turned out to be the right thing to do, if only because it made Malfoy screech indignantly when Crabbe and Goyle’s appetites overrode whatever orders he’d given them to treat Harry like dirt. Harry wound up giving some to Nott and Davis too. Greengrass passed, but she thanked him.

Blaise didn’t bother asking for permission, helping himself as he liked. When Harry gave him a look, Blaise just smiled back at him innocently. Meanwhile, Malfoy was stewing as rest of the Slytherin first years made Harry feel almost at home for the first time.

Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. If only he could change their minds about Muggles and Muggleborns, then Harry might even be able to enjoy being a Slytherin.

 

* * *

          

Harry’s first practice was that afternoon. He’d never been inside the Quidditch stadium before, and he took in the unfamiliar field with its elevated bleachers and golden poles with hoops. They must be goals of some sort, Harry thought.

He didn’t see any sign of Flint, so Harry mounted his broom and kicked off. He whooped as he swooped around the field, the Nimbus Two Thousand seemed to turn whenever he wanted to moment he shifted his weight. He careened carelessly through the air, picking up speed as he did so, pushing the Nimbus to its limits.

“Oi! Potter!” Harry looked down to see Flint, who was bellowing at him and standing beside two other boys. “Get your scrawny arse down here.”

Harry wheeled around in the sky and flew straight down, pulling up to a graceful stop only a few feet from the three. He wasn’t sure how much he appreciated being called ‘scrawny’, but it wasn’t precisely a charge he could deny. Also, Harry had a feeling that talking back to Flint wouldn’t end well.

“Circe’s tits,” said the boy on Flint’s right, his dark eyes lighting up as he watched Harry come in. He was lean and dark-skinned, with curly hair and closer to Harry’s height than the other two. “The kid’s a natural.”

Harry felt it was a bit rich for someone who was probably no older than a third year to call him a kid.

“No wonder you let Higgs bail for his OWLs,” said the other boy, a tall, broad-shouldered blond with an amused expression around his hazel eyes. He was standing with one foot propped up on a large wooden crate.

“Hn,” Flint grunted. “You’ve already got a good handle on that broom, too.”

“Damn, it really is a Nimbus, isn’t it?” The dark skinned boy let out a low whistle, almost leering at the broom. “That’ll run you some Galleons. Name’s Adrian Pucey and this tall drink of milk right here is Miles Bletchley. We’re gonna put you through your paces, Potter.”

Bletchley heaved a sigh of resigned amusement at Pucey’s words. Harry decided it was probably best to just ignore the comment and keep the introductions moving.

“Thanks for that,” said Harry, shaking their hands.

“Alright, Bletchley, Pucey, you two get him up to speed,” Flint grumbled. “I’ve got a… a study group to go to.”

Harry did his best not to look too incredulous, and he was lucky that Flint didn't bother to look at him before he headed back to the castle. Pucey and Bletchley noticed, though and grinned at him.

“Professor Snape’s trying to get Flint graduating on schedule,” said Pucey. “And I take it you’ve noticed our dear captain isn’t exactly the sharpest quill in the bundle.”

Harry’s lips quirked, but he didn’t say anything, just hummed noncommittally.

“Good answer, Potter,” said Bletchley, giving Pucey a shove. “And Pucey, don’t make trouble. The last thing we need is Flint on the warpath.”

“Oh, get off your high Hippogriff,” Pucey said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Then he turned to Harry. “So, you were raised by Muggles?”

Harry instantly went on edge, but surprisingly the question wasn’t asked with derision.

“Yeah, I was, so I don’t really know anything about Quidditch,” Harry said.

“No wonder Flint pawned you off on us,” Pucey laughed. “He cheats so much I bet he doesn’t even remember the rules proper.”

“Cheats?” Harry asked.

“Some Slytherins are more concerned with winning than playing,” said Bletchley evenly. “Sometimes we play a little fast with the rules.”

“That’s not right,” said Harry without thinking.

“Don't talk like that in front of Flint,” murmured Pucey. Bletchley was looking at Harry with a cool, contemplative air that gradually became a smirk.

“Let’s see what you’ve got, Potter.”

 

* * *

 

Joining the Quidditch team had without a doubt improved Harry’s status in Slytherin. Where once the best he could hope for was benign indifference now had changed to polite acceptance, it not outright friendliness. Also, Malfoy was a lot quieter these days, and he mouthed off to Harry less, although he certainly didn’t stop.

But it was the members of his team who made the biggest difference. Older students recognizing him rapidly raised his social cachet, or at least that’s what Blaise told him. Harry found the whole business unseemly and tedious, but Blaise was clearly pleased, and Harry would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy that change in his housemates’ behavior.

For one thing, Harry had discovered that seats nearer the fireplaces were now open to him, a perk that Blaise had been quick to claim on his behalf. To be fair, Harry hadn’t realized it until Blaise had pointed it out.

So Harry was riding the high from his newfound acceptance and borderline popularity when a fresh wrinkle presented itself. Over the weeks he had noticed that there were a lot of snake motifs in the dungeons and Slytherin common room, and he knew that his house’s emblem was a snake, but he didn’t bring it up until one day when Blaise dragged him to see the new password posted on the common room noticeboard before breakfast.

Harry preferred to sleep in, an attitude shared only by Crabbe and Goyle in their dorm. Blaise, Nott, and Malfoy were all relatively early risers, and most mornings Harry found himself being badgered into accompanying Blaise to breakfast soon after it was served, which was entirely too early in Harry’s opinion.

But if Blaise didn’t get the first pick of the breakfast meats there would be hell to pay later, Harry knew from experience. No one did cutting passive aggressive remarks quite like Blaise. In fact, Harry sometimes wondered how Aunt Petunia would react to Blaise before he remembered how they would hate each other principle.

There was something terribly funny about that, Harry thought with foggy morning amusement. He scratched his hair, still damp from the 5-minute shower Blaise had deigned to allow him before swearing he’d leave for breakfast without Harry.

“ _Ophidia in herba?_ ” Harry read off the sheet with a yawn. He looked at Blaise, who was mouthing it to himself as well. “What’s that mean?”

“How should I know?” Blaise replied, one eyebrow elegantly raised to indicate how stupid of a question he thought it was. Harry nearly rolled his eyes. He was adjusting to Blaise’s attitude, but it still aggravated him how Blaise seemed incapable of communicating without being a sarcastic prat.

“It means snake in the grass,” said Nott coming up behind them.

“Snakes, snake, snakes,” grumbled Harry as the three of them trudged to breakfast. Harry didn’t question Nott joining up with them, although it wasn’t usual. Nott typically kept to himself, even if he’d warmed up along with the rest of Harry’s housemates when he joined the Quidditch team. “Why was Slytherin so obsessed with snakes?”

Snakes showed up a lot in the dungeon, in the form of little motifs and carvings, the edges of the tapestries displaying the notable deeds of Slytherins long since passed. Harry didn’t mind snakes, but Slytherin must have been obsessed. He wondered if the other patron animals figured so heavily in their house’s common rooms.

“Snakes are widely associated with the darkest of the dark arts, which are also the more potent,” said Nott and something in his voice set the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck up. Nott was always alluding to his father teaching him these things, and while no one really believed him, something in his voice told Harry that not everything Nott had said was an exaggeration. “And Slytherin was a Parselmouth, so he could make use of them better than most.”

“What’s a Parselmouth?” asked Harry.

“A wizard who can speak to snakes,” said Blaise as they neared the closest entrance to the Great Hall.

“Oh. I guess I’m one too, then,” said Harry with a careless shrug. Maybe that explained why the Hat had sorted him into Slytherin. He kept walking for a few paces before he noticed his companions had abandoned him.

Harry turned to look back and saw Blaise and Nott staring at him, eyes wide and their mouths hanging open.

“What?” Harry asked nervously, looking around wildly. “Is there—is it Peeves?”

Peeves didn’t generally come so close to the Great Hall during meal times, leastaways not when the professors were about. Slytherins were mostly lucky in that the Blood Baron kept Peeves off their backs for the most part, but at the end of the day, no one was safe from the poltergeist unless they were standing directly beside a teacher or the Baron.

“You are _not_ a Parselmouth,” said Blaise so firmly he seemed almost offended, angry even like Harry had insulted his mother.

“Yes, I am!” Harry replied hotly. He hated it when people told him he was lying, and he knew he wasn’t, the anger brought him right back to the Dursleys, and he just hated it.

“Prove it,” said Nott, his blue eyes intent on Harry.

“Find me a snake and I will!” Harry snapped and then stomped off to the Slytherin table. He was getting along better with his housemates, even Crabbe, and Goyle though not when Malfoy was around, but they still regularly drove him up the walls.

As Harry dished out food for himself, Blaise and Nott settled on either side of him, which was new. Usually Nott sat on the other side of Blaise if he sat with them at all, preferring typically to eat by himself as much as possible.

“I’m not lying you know,” Harry grumbled.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough,” said Blaise. Harry gave him a hunted look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“After lunch, we’re going to get you a snake,” Nott told him conversationally, as though he sat and ate meals with Harry all the time. “And then we’ll see if you really are a Parselmouth.”

“Fine!” Harry spat, stabbing a sausage with his fork and almost throwing it on his plate.

“Oh, come off it, Potter, and get your knickers untwisted,” Blaise said scornfully, brushing off his sleeve from any juice Harry’s sausage might have thrown out as it landed. “It’s an incredibly rare and powerful gift, the odds you’re _not_ lying to us are so much smaller than the odds that you are lying to us it’s almost laughable. No, wait, it is laughable.”

“Well, I can, and I have, and I will, and then we’ll see who’s laughing,” muttered Harry.

He couldn’t believe Blaise thought he was lying, didn’t Blaise know him well enough by now to know Harry wouldn’t lie about something so stupid, or simple to disprove? Nott he didn’t care about because Nott was only somewhat less of a prat than Malfoy, but Blaise was supposed to be his friend or whatever passed for friendship in Slytherin.

“What’s all this?” asked Malfoy as he took up a seat directly across from Harry, and Harry’s heart sank in dismay. Crabbe and Goyle came next, flanking Malfoy just like Blaise and Nott flanked Harry as if they were two tiny armies facing off over the dining table.

Harry felt more than a little penned in, and it was putting him on edge.

“Potter says he’s a Parselmouth,” Blaise told them, and Harry watched Malfoy’s eyebrows shoot up. Goyle and Crabbe just looked confused. “And after lunch, we’re going to test that.”

“A Parselmouth. Really, Potter? You talk to snakes too?” Malfoy drawled mockingly.

“It was just the one,” Harry grumbled.

“Tell us this story then, of the time you talked to a snake,” asked Nott, his voice quiet but his eyes were intense.

Harry wasn’t sure why, but he felt like Nott believed him. He also wasn’t sure why that felt like it might not be a good thing.

“Okay, so it was my cousin Dudley’s birthday, and…” Harry did his best to tell the story without letting too much on about how the Dursleys treated him.

It wasn’t that hard. Once Harry started talking about how he vanished the glass and Dudley panicking they were all in stitches.

“Oh, Potter, I almost hope you actually are a Parselmouth because that is some outstanding Muggle-baiting,” Malfoy said, and of course, the first time Malfoy was civil to him was because of his prejudices.

“It wasn’t—I didn’t do it _bait_ him.” Harry didn’t know what Muggle-baiting was, but it didn’t sound right. It sounded like the sort of thing that Dudley would get up to if he had magic. “It just happened.”

“And the snake really did say it was from Brazil?” Nott pressed. Harry found himself leaning away from Nott slightly.

“What snake?” asked Greengrass as she joined the table with Tracey and Bulstrode in tow.

Harry groaned.

 

* * *

 

Before breakfast was over the entire first year, Slytherin class had decided to join in this demonstration. Harry was beginning to get a little nervous. What if it _had_ been a fluke? If so, he was about to humiliate himself in front of his housemates, who wouldn’t hesitate to re-enact that humiliation over and over again.

They trouped outside

“Okay, so there’s got to be a snake around here somewhere,” said Malfoy, surveying the lake and the Forbidden Forest like a lordling surveying his family’s estate. “Crabbe, Goyle, go and fetch us one.”

“There’s no need,” said Nott, who had drawn his wand. He stared into Harry’s eyes and the other Slytherins circled around them. “My father taught me a spell we can use.”

Apparently, Harry wasn’t the only person to be backing up his stories today. Nott’s ominous references to his knowledge of the Dark Arts was also on the line now.

Nott took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He raised his wand.

“ _Serpensortia_ ,” he incanted. The end of his wand exploded with a bang as a snake seemed almost to shoot out from the tip like a rocket.

The snake landed on the ground in a tangled, sinuous heap. The snake was brown and green in a mottled pattern, and about two feet long. It raised its head warily.

Harry stared at the snake as his housemates murmured, several of them glancing at Nott, whose gaze remained locked on Harry.

“Go on then, Potter, talk to the snake,” Malfoy crowed mockingly.

Harry took a deep breath, his hands clammy and stared at the snake, into its eyes and the tongue it flicked out to taste the air.

“Uh, _hello, there,_ ” Harry said, and the snake reared up. One of his housemates gasped in shock. “ _Can you do me a favor?_ ”

“Oh come on he’s just hissing,” Malfoy was saying when the snake hissed back.

“ _For one who has the gift of Serpent-tongue? But of course,”_ said the snake. “ _Even if it is too cold here._ ”

Harry stood up and looked at Malfoy, who was now looking wary. Harry smiled, he’d show Malfoy what it was like to be the one being mocked. “ _Pretend you’re going to bite the blond boy there._ ”

The snake swiveled about to stare at Malfoy and then set off toward him at a fast clip. Harry laughed as Malfoy tripped and fell in his haste to flee from the snake, tripping over his own feet and robes in his attempt to get away.

“Stop it, Potter—NO, GET IT OFF ME!” Malfoy was shrieking. Crabbe and Goyle were paralyzed, staring at their leader as the snake slithered nimbly around Malfoy and even through his robes.

“You weren’t lying,” breathed Nott as Malfoy shrieked again.

“CALL IT OFF, POTTER!” Malfoy was crying, and he sounded genuinely upset, screaming as he rolled around trying to get away from the snake, too panicked even to stand up. Suddenly Harry felt cold and awful, his laughter dying in his throat. “PLEASE--POTTER, CALL IT OFF I'M SORRY!”

“ _Stop!_ ” Harry commanded, and the snake froze. “ _Come back here._ ”

Obediently the snake slithered off Malfoy and returned to wait at Harry’s feet. Malfoy rolled around, scrambling to his knees and then feet, rubbing his hands down his body trying to erase the feeling of the snake crawling all over him.

“Er, _good job_ ,” Harry told the snake and then looked at Nott, who was still staring at him.

They were all staring at him, torn between the poles of fear and awe. Except for Malfoy, who was somehow pale and flushed with furious looking tear tracks on his cheeks that he hurriedly rubbed away.

Harry hadn’t been humiliated this time, but he’d done the same, if not worse, to someone else. He felt a little sick to his stomach.

“Well, it does appear you were telling the truth, Harry,” said Blaise, his eyes calculating. Harry felt curiously exposed, his skin prickling as the brisk autumn wind drove through the group.

“That was incredible,” Nott gasped. Malfoy was stomping off shoving Goyle and Crabbe away when they moved as if to help him.

“I’m sorry, Malfoy, I didn’t mean to—” Harry began.

“Save it, Potter,” Malfoy snarled, looking furious. “You’re a bloody maniac! A freak!”

“Well, fine then! Be that way!” Harry snapped, the word ‘freak’ making his temper flare over whatever guilt and sympathy he’d just felt. For good measure he added in Parseltongue, “ _And next time I’ll tell the snake to bite._ ”

Someone whimpered, and Harry turned away from Malfoy’s pale countenance, trembling with rage and fear and shame, to see Tracey Davis staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. And not just her, it was Parkinson too. Even Greengrass was looking at Harry warily, although most of her concern was directed toward her friend. Only Bulstrode seemed largely unmoved, chewing her lip as she looked narrow-eyed at Harry.

“Come on, Tracey,” Greengrass said, gently guiding Davis away from Harry, back to the castle. “Let’s go back to the common room.”

Malfoy strode past them at a quick clip, his back rigid with humiliated rage. Crabbe and Goyle hurried along behind him, glancing back at Harry worriedly. Parkinson linked up with Malfoy as he left, even though he pointedly ignored her efforts to appease him.

“Neat trick, Potter,” was all Bulstrode rumbled before she walked back toward the castle.

That left only Harry, Blaise, and Nott, who vanished the snake with another spell Harry didn’t know.

“Happy?” Harry spat. They’d pushed him into this, and now everyone else was afraid of him. If Harry was honest, he also felt more than a little ashamed. Malfoy had been truly terrified, and for a moment it had been funny, but then it just made Harry feel ill.

“Right now, or in general?” asked Blaise and Harry made a noise of pure un-adulterated frustration.

“Ignore them,” Nott said insistently, his eyes burning brightly. “You’re a Parselmouth, do you know how rare that is? How special?”

“I don’t want to be special then!” Harry snapped. Nott quailed in the face of his anger, but Blaise was unmoved.

“Why not?” asked Blaise. He seemed genuinely confused, which in turn confused Harry.

“I don’t want people to be afraid of me,” Harry said. The way Malfoy had looked, shrieking and crying in fear… He hated Malfoy and wanted to embarrass him, but not terrify him, not scare him so badly he cried.

“Fear is power, Harry,” Nott was telling him insistently, blue eyes gleaming with hunger. “And you have power.”

“What power are you talking about?” Harry yelled making Nott quail. Blaise didn’t even flinch, just raised his hand to start counting.

“You’re the Boy Who Lived. You’ve forged connections to several wealthy and influential pureblood line simply by being sorted into Slytherin,” Blaise was ticking off his fingers. “Not to mention that Professor Black is paterfamilias of his estate, and he apparently intends to sponsor you, or maybe even make you one of his heirs. You’re the youngest seeker in a century despite never once flying on a broom before, and—“

“Okay! Stop! I get it,” Harry said. “So why are the two of you so happy about this when everyone else is scared of me?”

Why are you friends with me, what do you want from me, were both questions he wanted to ask but wasn’t sure he could stand to hear the answers. Well, from Blaise at any rate.

Blaise and Nott traded a loaded look between them.

“What did you say to the snake?” asked Blaise and the non-sequitur neatly derailed Harry’s still-burgeoning anger.

“Uh, I told it to pretend to bite Malfoy,” said Harry, feeling guiltier by the second as he membered Malfoy’s terrified cries.

“See? Not only was no harm done, none was even intended,” said Blaise. “It’s not your fault Malfoy’s such a ponce.”

"Besides, there're lots you can do with Parseltongue,” said Nott excitedly. In fact, this was more excited than Harry had ever seen Nott, come to think of it. “You know there are even certain spells you can cast solely in Parseltongue!”

“And I suppose you want to try some,” Harry said guardedly.

“Well, don’t you? My father… told me some stuff,” said Nott, going from excited to hedging in only a few words. “I could help you research if you wanted.”

Harry sighed, feeling defeated. “If you want.”

           

* * *

 

The rest of the day proceeded uneventfully after the Snake Incident as Harry thought of it. In point of fact, Harry had noticed a curious lack of stares and explosive whispering, things he’d been expecting. He’d already grown somewhat used to people staring at him because he was The Boy Who Lived, and with the way his Housemates reacted to the Snake Incident, Harry felt sure he would have noticed as word spread through the school.

Only it seemed no word was spreading.

“No one’s said anything about my being a Parselmouth,” said Harry during dinner. Although it was a statement, it explicitly framed a question.

“Who would?” asked Blaise. “Malfoy won’t because of how thoroughly you embarrassed him, which also counts out Crabbe and Goyle. The girls are either too scared of you to say anything, or they’re Bulstrode, and no one talks to her anyway. That just leaves Theo and myself, and we both know you wouldn’t want us to go spreading the word.”

The given name thing was also somewhat new. After the experience with the snake Nott—or rather, Harry thought grudgingly—Theo had clearly thrown his lot in with Harry, and apparently so had Blaise. Blaise was to be expected, but Theo was a surprise. He’d so far abstained from aligning himself with anyone, and even when Harry had joined the Quidditch team that had only tamped down on Theo’s mocking of him, not made them friends or anything.

Now, however, that he knew Harry was a Parseltongue, he made the commitment. It was somewhat unsettling, to say the least.

At any rate, now they were all on a first-name basis. Harry wasn’t quite sure how that was significant, but it meant something. He wasn’t sure it meant they were friends, though, but what else to call them?

They would say to call them allies, Harry thought to himself darkly. He essentially considered Blaise a friend already, but Theo would have to prove himself after all the bigoted jokes and taunting Harry with Malfoy.

Think of the devil and he shall appear, Harry reflected as Theo scuttled over to the table, his face flushed, and a bag bulging with books slung over his shoulder.

“Welcome back, Theo, have a nice sprint from the library?” Blaise asked with a smirk. Theo was either immune to it or didn’t care, wiping a lock of sweaty dark hair off his forehead.

“What’s in the bag, Nott?” asked Malfoy, who was sitting as far from Harry as he could manage without intruding on one of the other year’s designated sitting areas. There were no hard rules about who sat where, but everyone knew which section of the table theirs was.

“Harry, I found a few books but all the good ones are in the Restricted Section,” Theo was telling him, ignoring Blaise and Malfoy as he slid into the seat next to Harry. “You should ask Professor Black to write you a permission slip, I bet he would, but these are some histories of famous Parselmouths, and these books are both on magical inheritances and—“

“Merlin’s Beard, Theo, slow down you’re going to give me a headache,” said Blaise looking disdainfully at the pile of books Theo cradled in his lap. “I liked you better when you didn’t talk. Harry, don’t let him foist those off on you, make him read them.”

"Er… that is a bit much,” Harry said. “And I’ve got Quidditch practice three days a week.”

Theo was looking disgruntled, and Harry realized he might be seeming ungrateful.

“I’ll ask Siri—I mean Professor Black about a permission slip, though, that’s a good idea,” Harry said. Theo seemed mollified for the moment.

“I’m sure whatever’s there will be better than that sorry lot,” Blaise drawled.

“Oh, slag off, Blaise,” Theo grumbled.

“Well, aren’t you lot just _chummy_ ,” Malfoy said, more petulant than mocking.

“Just because you treat your friends like minions doesn’t mean everyone else does,” Harry shot back.

Beside him, Blaise snickered, and Malfoy scowled at him. As much as he wanted to fight with Harry, it seemed Blaise and Theo’s presence, and the lack of Crabbe and Goyle kept him nicely in check.

“Incoming,” said Theo in an undertone. Harry looked up to see the four Gryffindor boys trooping over to them. More specifically, toward Malfoy.

“Oi, Malfoy, what had you screaming and crying on the ground earlier? We saw it from the tower, and all had a good laugh. Did Mommy’s widdle baby hurt himself?” cooed Ron. Finnegan and Thomas were both laughing, but Neville was looking like he’d rather be anywhere else just then.

“Hey!” The whole group looked at Harry. “Knock it off, Ron.”

Blaise rolled his eyes, but Theo was quiet, watching intently.

“See, I told you snakes stick together,” Ron said to Neville and the other Gryffindor boys.

Neville looked at Ron skeptically, as if he wanted to point out that Ron was the instigator here this time, not Malfoy, and Harry was only sticking up for him because of that. Finnegan and Thomas, on the other hand, had no problem sneering at Malfoy.

“I don’t need _you_ defending me, Potter,” Malfoy sneered. “Certainly not from impoverished blood traitors. Tell me, Weasely, how does your mother manage to provide for such a large litter? Does she have to—”

“Malfoy, _sss_ hut up,” said Harry, letting just a hint of sibilance bleed through his voice. Harry felt Nott shiver beside him while Blaise practically radiated satisfaction.

Malfoy’s jaw closed shut with an almost audible click, his face white. Ron took no notice of it, though, his face was nearly as red as his hair and his eyes flashing with hate.

“You little—”

“Little what, Mr. Weasely?” asked Professor Snape, looming out of nowhere like the world’s most terrifying gargoyle.

“I—nothing, Sir,” Ron swallowed.

“Three points from Gryffindor for harassing another student during dinner,” said Snape and the Gryffindors looked mutinous but didn’t dare talk back to him. “Now return to your table.”

No one talked back to Professor Snape, so far as Harry could tell.

“Mr. Potter, the Headmaster would like to see you after you finish your meal,” Snape continued, his gaze swiveling to pin Harry like a particularly unfortunate insect. “The password is… _Lemon Drop_.”

Snape didn’t seem to be a fan of Dumbledore’s password, but Harry thought it made for a nice break from vaguely menacing phrases in Latin.

“Thank you, Sir,” Harry said.

Snape scowled at him and stalked off, black robes billowing about like bat wings. Joining the Quidditch team had decidedly made things in Slytherin better for Harry, but Snape hadn’t warmed up like the Slytherin students had.

At least he didn’t call on Harry to mock him for his ignorance as often.

“Wonder what the Headmaster wants with you,” Blaise mused quietly.

Harry ignored the way Malfoy was glowering at him and wondered the same thing.

           

* * *

 

When Harry walked up the stairs to the Headmaster’s office, he found the door ajar, and cautiously pushed his way in.

“Headmaster?”

“Come in, Mr. Potter,” said Dumbledore. “Please, have a seat.”

Harry walked towards the cushy armchair that Dumbledore directed him towards, on the other side of his desk.

Dumbledore’s office was amazing, full of even more remarkable and fascinating objects than Sirius’s. Glinting gold tools, gleaming silver devices, and shiny baubles decorated almost every available surface, along with ancient looking books and scrolls. Harry tried not to gape, which was easy given how nervous he felt about being summoned to the Headmaster. There were portraits (most of them elderly wizards, and most of them asleep) covering the wall and Harry was pretty sure he saw the Sorting Hat on a shelf before his attention returned to the Headmaster.

Harry sat down and got his first close look at Dumbledore. His blue eyes were gentle and thoughtful, and Harry lost a bit of the tension in his shoulders. Up close Dumbledore resembled nothing so much as a kindly old man with a rather flamboyant fashion sense.

“Lemon drop?” Dumbledore asked, and Harry realized he was offering him a little bowl of candies.

“No thank you, Professor.”

Something made a trilling sound behind him, and Harry whirled around and gasped. A brilliantly colored bird, resplendent in red and gold hues, was stirring on its massive perch.

“Wow,” Harry breathed in awe.

“Did you have something to add, Fawkes?” Dumbledore asked, sounding amused.

Fawkes warbled, fluffed his wings, and began to preen his magnificent plumage.

“What is he?”

“Fawkes is a Phoenix,” said Dumbledore. “And it seems he likes you.”

“He does?” Harry asked brightly.

“He does.” Dumbledore looked at Harry, his eyes warm. “Magical animals can be rather astute judges of character.”

“Well, I dunno about that,” said Harry, his mind flashing back to earlier when he’d terrified Malfoy.

“They forgive us our missteps, so long as we are sincere in our regret, as well,” said Dumbledore softly, like he knew exactly what Harry was thinking. “We are not just who we choose to be at present; we are the sum of our decisions and the choices that will follow.”

“Um, thank you?” asked Harry.

“Ah, pardon an old man his wool-gathering,” said Dumbledore, his eyes twinkling. “I didn’t call you up to hear to discuss philosophy.”

“Why did you, then, Sir?” Harry asked.

“I thought it would behoove me to check on your progress, and your adjustment to Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore, popping a lemon candy into his mouth. Harry wondered if other students got this sort of treatment, although he imagined they didn’t. “How are you finding Slytherin?”

“It’s… all right.” Harry wasn’t about to go revealing the truth to Dumbledore like he would to Sirius.

“I saw there was a bit of a commotion earlier down by the lake,” said Dumbledore and Harry stiffened. “I trust you’re getting along with your housemates?”

“Uh… kind of?” Harry said.

“ _Or perhaps in Slytherin you’ll make your real friends. Those cunning folks use any means to achieve their ends_ ,” Dumbledore said, and Harry realized he was quoting the Sorting Hat’s song. “Tell me, Harry, how are your classes going?”

Harry wasn’t sure what Dumbledore was looking for, but he did his best to answer honestly. Dumbledore kept asking questions that bordered on small-talk, gently probing Harry for his opinion on his teachers, the school, and Quidditch.

Finally, Dumbledore had either discovered what he wanted or was otherwise satisfied. Harry wasn’t sure what he’d been looking for, but he had to have been satisfied because his next question was clearly a prelude to a dismissal.

“Now, perhaps you might have a question or two for me?”

Harry bit his lip. He felt like he had a hundred questions bouncing around his brain clamoring to be the first one out of his mouth, but none he felt comfortable asking. Harry shook his head no.

“Very well, I won’t keep you further, Mr. Potter.” Dumbledore gently dismissed Harry, who was relieved to be finally done. There was nothing threatening about Dumbledore, but Harry had felt curiously exposed sitting in that chair faced with those piercingly bright blue eyes.

Harry was halfway out the room when Dumbledore’s voice caught his attention.

“Oh, and Harry?”

“Yes, Sir?”

“It would be wise of you to keep exercising discretion with regard to your talent.” Dumbledore’s expression was kind but firm, which kept Harry from sputtering in panic. “Such gifts are not to be deployed frivolously.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Splendid!” Dumbledore said with a sprightly air that made Harry feel at ease once again. The tin of candies on his desk suddenly flew over to Harry, hovering in the air as its lid popped open, all without a single movement from Dumbledore. “Lemon drop before you leave?”

This time, Harry took him up on the offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> had to repost this chapter since ao3's shitty draft function doesn't change dates


	8. Chapter 8

Perhaps it was because he was now so busy, what with Quidditch practice three evenings a week on top of all his homework, but Harry could hardly believe it when he realized that he’d already been at Hogwarts two months. Winter was in full swing, and the cold weather was driving all manner of pests inside. The castle had been flooded with tiny spiders of late, enough that a few enterprising Slytherin fourth years had offered to pest-proof beds and trunks of their younger housemates—for a modest fee of course.

All in all, Hogwarts felt more like home than Privet Drive ever had, though that wasn’t saying much. But after joining the Quidditch team and the Snake Incident, Harry’s position in Slytherin had completely changed his experience of his House.

Where once he’d been constantly on edge, and barely restrained from being mocked, now he was effectively being treated like the king of the first years, although one who was more feared than loved. Even Malfoy barely sniped at him anymore, confining his responses to sneers and jeers, just enough for Harry to know his feelings hadn’t changed.

Everyone else, though, including Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle when Malfoy’s back was turned, treated Harry differently. Even some of the older Slytherins who weren’t on the Quidditch team began acknowledging him, just nods in the common room and the halls, but it was further evidence of Harry’s acceptance in his own house, or as Blaise and Theo thought of it, further proof of his expanding influence. Even _Potions_ had gotten better since Harry had joined the Quidditch team. Snape still looked at Harry like he had just tasted something foul, but he didn’t mock Harry’s ignorance by calling on him.

Well, he didn’t do it quite as often at least.

His lessons too were becoming more and more exciting, especially now that they had mastered some of the basics. With Theo helping him complete his assignments and Blaise “helping” him with snide remarks and letting Harry copy the occasional essay, Harry managed just barely to stay on top of his homework.

At least Sirius didn’t assign much bookwork; he preferred a more hands-on approach. Something that the first years appreciated, and not just Harry’s housemates either. Sirius was very popular with the student body on the whole. Most of the girls had crushes on him, and the boys wanted to be him, which in some cases was awfully close to having a crush on him. Professor Black was cool, fashionable, and didn’t assign a lot of homework, and his class had an aura of danger about it.

Given how often students went to Madam Pomfrey from Sirius’s class, his reputation wasn’t exactly undeserved. Sirius’s approach could be a bit unorthodox, but he did get results. And Harry always looked forward to his class.

Defense fell on Halloween morning, and the whole castle woke to the delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafting through the corridors. Even better, Sirius announced in Defense Against the Dark Arts that they were going to learn the Disarming Charm.

Of course, since this was Sirius, his lesson plan had a catch.

“Alright, everyone, today you’ll be working with a partner,” Sirius told them when they trooped into class. He flicked a spider off his desk with a frown—there’d been a lot of them in the castle lately, driven inside by the cold weather. “So pair up.”

Blaise and Theo both turned to look at Harry, and Harry hated it when they did this. Because Theo was the better class partner in that he was much more helpful, but if Harry just chose him every time then Blaise would start getting shirty for at least a week, or until Harry soothed his wounded ego, whichever came first. Of course, if Harry spent too much time with Blaise then _Theo_ would start pointedly sulking near them, which usually led to Blaise making some comment and then Harry would have to play peacemaker again anyway.

Privet Drive may have been awful, but it wasn’t nearly so confusing as Slytherin.

“Theo,” Harry said. When Theo smiled smugly at Blaise, who definitely didn’t scowl and instead just raised a single impassive eyebrow. Harry hurried to add, “But Blaise, I was wondering if you’d be willing to help me with our History of Magic essay?”

“The one due next period?” asked Blaise wryly and Harry froze before he groaned in dismay.

Theo was snickering into his hand, and as much as Harry didn’t care for being laughed at, he’d take it over the two of them sniping at each other any day of the week.

“You can copy it during class,” said Blaise, still looking amused. “Binns won’t notice. Now I suppose I better go pick off Malfoy before he decides to settle for sending a message.”

Every time the Slytherin first years were designated to pair off, Malfoy always waited to see who Harry would choose, Theo or Blaise. Because Malfoy liked his marks, and Crabbe and Goyle were like gorillas in more than just demeanor, he was willing to wait for a bit, but his pride wouldn’t let him sit idle too long.

And of course if that happened then Blaise would be irritated at his partner, and Malfoy would be surlier than usual, and Theo wouldn’t make it any easier by being smug the whole time. So it was with a mild relief that Harry watched Blaise saunter over to Malfoy as Malfoy did his best to make it seem he was deigning to take Blaise as his partner, foisting Crabbe and Goyle off on each other.

“Alright class, we’ll be working on two charms today,” Sirius said once everyone had paired off, his white teeth flashing in his handsome face. “The first charm you’re already familiar with: the Verdimillious Charm. The second spell, the one we’re learning today, will be the Disarming Charm—a fundamental weapon in every duelist’s arsenal!”

Here Sirius’s grin turned a bit roguish, enough to make the girls titter and sigh, to Harry’s annoyance. “You and your partner will take turns attempting to disarm each other. If one of you fails, then your partner is going to spray green sparks right in your face. Consider it an incentive to perform.”

The class murmured excitedly at that. The sparks were bright and hot, but not enough to be actually painful, just really uncomfortable. Theo grinned at Harry who grinned back. This was almost like a real wizard’s duel!

Defense Against the Dark Arts was definitely Harry’s favorite class.

“Now, I’m going to demonstrate the spell for you just twice,” said Sirius as he raised his wand, his face alight with his wicked sense of humor. “So watch closely.”

Harry and his classmates left Defense Against the Dark Arts buzzing with energy and comparing war stories. To his pleasant surprise, Harry had been the first to pick up the Disarming spell, with Theo and Daphne mastering it around the same time soon after.

Toward the end, he and Theo had just been trading the charm and its counterspell back and forth, like a game of Muggle catch, or passing a Quaffle as Sirius observed. He’d awarded them each a point for doing so well too.

Harry’s next class was decidedly less exciting, History of Magic. Between all his homework and Quidditch practice, Harry was glad of a period that was effectively a free nap.

Blaise usually took the time to work on homework for another class, but Theo actually paid attention and took notes. As much as Harry didn’t want to think of friendship in terms of how useful a person was, he couldn’t deny that Theo’s swottiness wasn’t convenient. And luckily for Harry, Theo wasn’t a bossy know-it-all, and he had no qualms about Harry copying his notes.

So Harry had time to copy Blaise’s essay while Theo took notes for Harry (and by proxy Blaise), and Blaise pretended to focus on Professor Binns while paging listlessly through their textbook.

Harry was still yawning as the Slytherin first years trudged out from History of Magic to lunch. He’d managed to copy Blaise’s essay in time to catch the tail end of Binns’s lecture, only to tune out and rest his head on his desk. Constant Quidditch practices meant that Harry was almost always ready for a nap these days, and the droning of their ghostly History of Magic professor might as well be a sweet lullaby for how fast it could send Harry off to dreamland.

The Great Hall was already buzzing with activity, and Harry took his customary seat between Blaise and Theo.

“Ooh, roast beef,” said Blaise happily. Harry looked at him bemusedly. It was so rare for Blaise to be enthusiastic about anything, but he really liked red meat for some reason. Harry was well aware he didn’t have much room to talk, given his own sweet tooth, but it seemed an odd exception to the coolly detached and amused air Blaise did his best to cultivate

Still, watching Blaise pile his plate high with roast beef—no potatoes, no gravy, no carrots, no sprouts—and just roast beef, made Harry smile.

“Something I can do for you, Harry?” Blaise asked pointedly.

“Just keep being you, Blaise,” said Harry.

“I fail to see how I’d be anyone else,” Blaise replied with a haughty air, and then set about demolishing his miniature mountain of meat. Harry turned back to look over the hall and frowned.

“What’s Malfoy looking at?” Harry asked. Malfoy had stopped halfway to the table, however, to stare at the Gryffindor table. He’d been quieter since the Snake Incident, but he was hardly friendly, and Harry liked to keep tabs on him just in case.

Blaise, being the tallest of the three of them, stood up to see over the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables.

“Seems there’s a fight brewing between…” Blaise’s eyebrows rocketed up. “Oh my, it’s Weasely and Longbottom.”

“What?” Harry stood up to see, just in time to watch Neville shoving Ron and the arrival of Professor McGonagall. She quickly separated them and Harry could tell even from a distance she was giving them both an earful.

“Wonder what they’re fighting about,” said Harry mostly to himself.

“Maybe Longbottom dropped a spare Galleon,” said Theo with a nasty smile.

“That’s not funny, Theo,” Harry said sharply. Theo flinched and gave a Harry a sour look, but he didn’t say anything more.

“Actually, it is,” said Blaise, idly staring at the bite on his fork, before letting his sly gaze slide sideways to Harry. “Just because you don’t think it’s funny—”

“I _sss_ aid it’s not funny,” Harry snapped, and Blaise jerked back. Across the table, Tracey and Daphne were staring at Harry with wide eyes.

“Duly noted,” said Blaise carefully.

Harry was in no small amount of turmoil. This was exactly what he didn’t want, which ironically enough seemed to be what Blaise and Theo wanted: Harry using fear as a means of control. But Harry had made the choice—he’d let his anger get the better of him for Theo and Blaise saying such awful things, and he’d used a tool he knew would work.

He didn’t like it, but it had worked.

_Those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends._

“I’m sorry, Blaise, I just…” Harry trailed off, unsure how to say what he felt without unbundling how the Dursleys played into his feelings about poverty, about not having things of your own.

“I imagine your Muggles aren’t very well off, then,” said Blaise with only a little edge to his tone. When Harry twitched and Blaise’s gaze sharpened Harry realized that Blaise was giving him a chance to be forthcoming, but it meant he’d have to trust Blaise in a way he hadn’t before. Theo as well—and the girls by proximity.

Except Blaise clearly thought that Harry’s hand-me-downs and attitude about mocking Ron for his family’s poverty were a result of the Dursleys being poor. He didn't know that they hated Harry, or that Harry had grown up in a cupboard before Sirius had… done whatever he did and gotten Harry moved into an actual room.

So Harry just shrugged and didn’t deny it. Blaise watched him intently for a moment and then resumed eating.

“Ugh, another spider,” Theo complained loudly as he flicked a tiny spider off the table.

“The house elves need to do a better job of keeping the pests out,” said Blaise with a distasteful expression. They easily picked up a conversation about nothing in particular, leaving Harry free to stew in silence.

Harry had to admit they were both a lot better at redirecting conversations than he was. Some small part of him even wondered if he could trust them at this point. What if he told them the truth about the Dursleys?

No, he could see it now—the mocking, or worse, the bigotry. The Dursleys would validate all that blood purity nonsense Harry hated, at least they would in Blaise and Theo’s eyes. Best to keep quiet for now, and probably forever, on that subject.

After lunch, their next class was Herbology, which was a shared class with Ravenclaw. Typically that pairing made for a quiet and productive working environment, or at least as quiet and productive as any class at Hogwarts could be. It was also a class where Harry could partner with Blaise and assuage his wounded ego—all Harry had to do was volunteer to get his hands dirty, so Blaise didn’t have to.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully until they were once again sitting down in the Great Hall for another meal—this one being dinner. Harry was so hungry he ran to wash up and then to the Great Hall so that he could eat sooner.

When he arrived his spot was waiting for him, Blaise and Theo on either side of an empty space at the center of the Slytherin first years section of the table. The rest of the first years were arrayed about them, with Malfoy off-center enough so that Crabbe and Goyle flanking him was an obvious counterpoint to Harry, Blaise, and Theo.

According to Blaise, it was driving Malfoy insane that Harry didn’t care about his posturing, so Harry did his best to make it seem like Malfoy didn’t even register. Mostly he did this by trying to strike a balance between Blaise’s cool disdain and the way the Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had steadfastly ignored him after Harry’s trip to Diagon Alley with Sirius and Hagrid.

Harry had devoured half his porkchop when he bothered to look up and survey the rest of the hall. He craned his neck to get a good look at the Gryffindor table and saw Neville sitting by himself at the far end of the table. He looked upset but determined, and before he knew what he was doing Harry was putting down his knife and fork and pushing back his plate.

“Harry?” Theo asked in confusion as Harry stood up. Blaise was eyeing him as well.

Harry ignored both of them and walked back and around to the far end of the Gryffindor table, where Neville was sitting by himself. Neville didn’t look up until Harry sat down across from him.

“Harry?” he asked. “What are you doing over here?”

“Saw what happened at lunch, didn’t think you should have to eat alone just because Ron's a right git.”

Neville’s lips twitched, and he looked pleased. Then he glanced worriedly up at the rest of the Gryffindor table. Half the house was watching them with mild curiosity, except the handsome boy who’d glared at Harry the other day and who Harry now knew was Oliver Wood, the captain of the Gyrrinfodr Quidditch team.

“Well, I’m just grabbing a bite,” said Neville. “Hermione’s been missing all day, and I don’t think she’s coming to dinner, so I’m going to look for her.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you know she can be a bit of a…”

“A bossy know-it-all?”

Neville winced. “Right, but Ron actually called her that and she overheard him, so she ran off crying, and that was this morning right after Charms.”

“Is that what you two were fighting about earlier?” 

“Yeah,” said Neville with a sour look. “And I know Ron feels bad and all, but he won’t admit it or anything, so it’s just me.”

“Well, I’ll help you,” Harry offered. The way Neville cared about his friends or even people who weren’t his friends, was a nice change of pace from Harry’s housemates.

“Really?” Neville smiled brightly. “Thanks, Harry!”

“Er—Neville?”

They looked up to see Ron standing over Neville’s shoulder, looking uncomfortable. When he caught Harry’s eye he made a sour face but then his attention went back to Neville.

“What.” Neville’s voice was flat.

“I'm sorry, alright? And—and Granger wasn’t in class all afternoon, so I want…” Ron took a fortifying breath. “I reckon I owe her an apology.”

“As long as you say sorry to Hermione, it’s coals under cauldrons between us,” said Neville and Ron’s shoulders sagged in relief.

“Coals under cauldrons?” asked Harry.

“I guess Muggles don’t have cauldrons, do they,” said Neville.

“Yeah, they have elekrikity, right?” Ron directed the question to Harry like a peace offering.

“It’s electricity,” said Harry sharply, he wasn’t in the mood for playing nice with Ron. Judging by his sudden scowl, Ron saw it too. “So, are we going to find Granger?”

“Yeah, let’s go,” said Neville with a somewhat wary glance at Ron and Harry.

Ron didn’t look too happy that Harry was with them but seemed to have the sense not to object, what with him being the reason Granger was hiding in the first place. Also, Harry was still pretty miffed that Ron hadn’t apologized to _him_ for how Ron had been acting.

They made it to one of the side doors—Granger had run off after Charms, so that’s where they were starting their search—when the main door slammed open, framing Filch in the doorway dramatically. His clothes were torn, and blood matted his hair, while he could barely seem to keep his feet under him.

Quiet blanketed the hall as Filch stumbled in the door. He raised a hand to croak an unintelligible word and then collapsed.

En mass the student body rose to its feet along with the faculty. The first to make it to Filch’s side was Sirius, bounding across the Hall with long, athletic strides that probably none of the other teachers except Madam Hooch could match.

Sirius dropped to kneel by Filch, his wand out murmuring. The rest of the faculty were close on his heels, with Dumbledore in their lead, surprisingly nimble for such an old man.        

“Sirius?”

“Something’s bitten him. He’s been envenomed.”

“Stand aside, Black,” Snape kicked Sirius away without giving him time to respond.

Sirius’s eyes flashed with something past anger that tread into hate, but a stern look from Dumbledore stayed his temper. In turn, Snape knelt by Filch’s head, his wand out, mumbling something Harry couldn’t make out.

“Do you hear that?” asked Ron, looking unsettled.

A skittering noise as if from a hundred thousand tiny insect feet had grown loud enough for people to begin murmuring. Hundreds of black hats began to swivel about as the student body tried to find the source of the rapidly growing sound.

“SPIDERS!” someone shrieked, and then everyone was shouting and jumping on tables.

Spiders poured out from every crevasse, from under doors and through cracks covering the walls, scattering out from behind tapestries and carpeting the floor. They ranged in size from tiny things no bigger than one of Professor Dumbledore’s lemon drops to larger creatures the size of cats or small dogs.

Harry leaped up on the table as fast as anyone else, and Neville looked white as sheet. But Ron was whimpering, looking so terrified that Harry forgot some of his anger in place of sympathy.

Also, the spiders were pretty attention grabbing.

Professor Dumbledore raised his wand and a globe of crackling purple fire exploded from its tip. The fire expanded harmlessly through the Great Hall and felt like a warm breeze on Harry’s face when it touched him, but every single spider that it touched was consumed into ash.

After the fire had purged the room, Dumbledore flicked his wand again, issuing a loud bang to cease the uproar.

“Prefects,” he roared, “lead your Houses back to your dormitories immediately!”

Harry started back towards his table, but Neville caught him by his robe.

“Hermione’s still out there!” Neville protested.

Harry hesitated long enough for a tall redheaded boy who bore a familial resemblance to Ron and seemed to be in his element to sweep by trying to corral the younger students.

“Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear the spiders if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me, now. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me; I’m a prefect!”

“Right, but we better not let Percy see us,” said Ron. Harry remembered that Ron had said on the train he had a brother who was a prefect.

“We don’t even know where she is,” Harry protested.

“Er—I do,” said Ron. Harry and Neville shot incredulous looks at him. “I mean… Parvati told Lavender she was crying in the girl’s bathroom and wanted to be left alone.”

“Right, then, well, that problem’s solved. Now we just need to get out of here,” said Harry.

Ducking down they joined the Hufflepuffs going the other way, slipped down a deserted side corridor, and hurried off toward the girl’s bathroom. They had just turned the corner when they heard quick footsteps behind them.

“Percy!” hissed Ron, pulling Neville and Harry behind a large stone griffin.

Peering around it, however, they saw not Percy, but Sirius. He crossed the corridor and disappeared from view.

“What’s Professor Black doing?” Neville whispered.

“Search me,” said Ron.

Harry bit his lip and was about to suggest they just ask him—and also ask for help finding Hermione—when Snape strode through the door, clearly trailing Sirius.

“Now what’s Snape doing?” asked Harry.

“Why’s he following Professor Black?” asked Ron, with a sideways glance at Harry. Despite Sirius’s protests that he shouldn’t appear to favor Harry, it was well known throughout the school that Harry’s father had been one of Sirius’s close friends.

“I thought Professor Black and Professor Snape hated each other,” Neville whispered. That was another open secret well known throughout the school that Snape and Sirius did everything possible to avoid one another and maintain as much space as they could manage between them. So for Snape to be following Sirius so secretively alarmed Harry.

“They’re heading toward the third floor,” Ron said, but Harry held up his hand.

“Can you hear something?”

The other two boys went quiet, and in the silence, the sound reached them unimpeded, a delicate tromping like a stampede of particularly nimble ponies.

Coming down the hall was a trio of spiders, each of them nearly as tall as Harry.

“Run!” Ron yelped, and all three of them took off running in the opposite direction. At the end of the passage was an open door with a key in the lock, and they all ran for it. Harry pulled ahead, but Ron was right on his heels—only Neville was falling behind, his round face red with exertion.

Ron was gasping between breaths. “Bloody hell, giant spiders, giant spiders—oh no—REGULAR SPIDERS! REGULAR SPIDERS!”

Spiders much smaller than their large magical counterparts were flooding through the cracks of the wall to cover the hall’s floor like a living carpet.

“ _Verdimillious_!” Harry shot sparks at the spiders, the spell still on his mind from his lesson earlier. The spiders large and small skittered away from the light. Harry kept running but the moment he looked over his shoulder he saw the spiders had resumed the chase.

They kept sprinting towards the door at the end of the hall. Harry burst through the door first quickly followed by Ron. They spun around to urge Neville on when someone shrieked.

“What are you doing?” Granger demanded, her eyes red-rimmed and her hair bedraggled despite its usual frizziness. Harry realized that somehow they’d managed to run right to the girl’s toilet where she’d been hiding.

“Close it—CLOSE IT!” Neville screamed as he barreled into the room. Ron and Harry switched their focus off Hermione and shoved the door shut.

“Lock it!” Ron shouted as the spiders hit the door.

“What on earth is going on—this is a girl’s bathroom,” Granger sputtered. “You can’t be in here!”

“The key’s on the outside!” Harry cried in alarm.

The door bucked under their hands from the force of the spiders slamming against it.

“What is going on?” Granger demanded in a shrill voice.

“Giant spiders are invading the castle,” Harry told her. For a moment the spiders stopped, and the hall went silent.

“Why did it have to be spiders?” Ron moaned. “I hate spiders.”

“Giant spiders?” Granger asked, her red-rimmed eyes wide with fear. “You mean Acromantulas invaded the castle?”

Granger’s voice rose on every word until she was nearly shrieking. Harry had no idea what those were, but Neville was nodding.

A pair of long hair limbs snagged Neville by his robes and pulled him out the door with a shriek.

“HELP!” Neville screamed. Neville’s hands were braced against the door and wall while he frantically kicked back at the spiders.

Their venomous fangs were dripping poison.

“Neville!” Ron shoved the door away, causing Harry to stumble against the wall before he could slam the door back against the Acromantulas. Ron’s only focus was on Neville, who was trying to tear himself out of the spider's grip.

“DOWN!” Ron yelled as he pulled Neville forward by his chest. “Vermillious!”

Ron’s wand sparked and fizzled with smoke, but not enough to drive the Acromantula back.

“I can’t hold them!” Harry cried as the door slowly forced him backward. Granger was still shrieking in the background.

“Bugger it!” Ron shouted and reached up to grab one of the hair thin Acromantula legs. He hauled himself up and over Neville—and stabbed the spider right in one of its eyes with his wand.

The Acromantula shrieked and fell back, tangled with its fellows. Harry slammed the door shut as Neville and Ron rolled into the bathroom. Harry and Neville whirled around to brace against the door, but Ron let loose a full-throated groan of pain, gripping his arm by his elbow.

“You’re bleeding!” Granger gasped.

“I noticed,” Ron replied weakly, staring at his forearm. His face was white and he’d begun to sweat.

“Ron—sink—water,” Neville gasped as he leaned his weight against the door, Harry by his side.

Ron staggered for the sinks shouldering his way past a petrified Granger to fumble with the faucet. After a moment she ran to help him, turning on the water while he pulled back his torn sleeve.

Meanwhile, tiny spiders spilled through the cracks around the door and hinges. Neville and Harry stamped and slapped at them with their hats while doing their best to keep the door barred.

Ron let loose a whimpering sigh as the cold water cascaded over his wounded arm. He looked pale and beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. Leaning his weight against the sink in a way that worried Harry, and Granger too, judging by her wide-eyed look.

“I really, _really_ hate spiders,” Ron gasped.

Smaller spiders kept spilling through the cracks of the door again, more than before. Harry and Neville did a dance to smash the spiders while also trying to keep the door closed.

“We need to stop up the door!” Harry said as it rattled behind his and Neville’s backs.

“We—we need to build some sort of bulwark,” Granger was babbling. “Something to seal the door—maybe if we stuff the cracks with towels…”

“Are you a witch or not?” moaned Ron as he ran water over his arm. “I know you’ve already read our books, just use a spell!”

“Well, there’s Colloportus, but we don’t learn it until the end of term…”

“Just cast it, Hermione!” Neville shouted as the door shuddered again.

Granger fished out her wand with shaking hands that stilled once she assumed a stance. She closed her eyes and took a breath.

“ _Colloportus!_ ” Granger shouted, and the door sealed itself to the wall so sharply, and Harry and Neville fell backward.

The door shuddered a few more times, but the hinges no longer rattled, and it was apparent the door wouldn’t move from the force of the spiders alone, and none of the smaller ones could make it through now.

Scrabbling from the spiders feeling the door filled the room with silence.

“Ron, are you alright?” asked Neville, trotting to his side.

“I could be better,” he said dryly enough that Harry had to cover a laugh. Ron offered him a tired grin before he seemed to realize who he was smiling at, and his smile wilted like he wasn’t sure he was allowed to look at Harry that way.

Harry would be lying if he said that Ron’s actions and condition weren’t weighing his sympathy in Ron’s favor.

“I suppose we just wait until a professor comes looking for us?” asked Granger.

None of them managed a reply as something heavy slammed into the door. Stout wood cracked under the force, a booming crack that made all of them jump.

The four of them stared at the door in horror. It shuddered again, this blow not nearly so strong as the first, and then everything outside went still.

Slowly, the ticker-tacker sound of something large approaching came to a halt outside the bathroom. If they judged by the weight of its steps, this spider was far bigger than its companions.

All four of them exchanged scared glances. Harry gripped his wand and moved to stand in front of Ron and Granger, with Neville quickly flocking to his side, shoulder to shoulder.

“Leave it,” said an intensely cold, almost alien voice. “I do not seek children— _find me my prize_.”

Chittering and movement outside increased and then subsided, fading away. Gradually Harry and the others relaxed and began to breathe more easily.

“Who was that?”

“I don’t know.

“I think it was an Acromantula,” said Granger. The boys looked at her quizzically. “The really old ones can talk, they’re practically as smart as people.”

“Bloody hell,” Ron whimpered.

He sounded so miserable that Harry couldn’t refrain from reaching out and patting him on the shoulder. For someone who hated spiders so much he hadn’t hesitated to come looking for Granger, or when Neville had been knocked down by the Acromantula—facts that didn’t seem lost on the others either.

Or maybe the terror of being eaten by spiders had mollified Granger enough she wasn’t as upset anymore. Harry didn’t know much about girls—they seemed a bit of a mystery to him. At least the ones in Slytherin were, he didn’t have much experience outside of that, seeing as how Dudley and his cronies had done their level best to keep Harry isolated.

“How—how did you know where to find me?” asked Granger.

“Ron found out from Parvati and Lavender,” said Neville.

Granger gave Ron a severe look that softened when she took in his bedraggled appearance and the red oozing wound on his arm.

“They said you’d been crying in the toilet all day,” Ron told her, his voice reedy. Harry covered his mouth when Ron only seemed to process the words that had come out of his mouth after the fact.

Granger looked furious now, her hands flying to her hips and her red-rimmed eyes practically sparking.

“I’m sorry!” Run blurted out, looking red, and to Harry’s surprise, Ron turned to him. “Both of you. Harry, I’m sorry I’ve been an arse since you were sorted into Slytherin.”

Ron turned back to Granger. “And, Hermione, I’m really sorry I called you a know it all during Charms—not just because it was mean but also you really do know a lot about magic!”

Ron’s words had run together a bit there, almost slurring, but the meaning was clear.

“Well, that’s all right then,” said Harry easily.

“I suppose it is for me as well,” said Hermione smoothing out her robes, her cheeks pink. “Apology accepted—and, thank you. All of you, for coming to find for me.”

“Well, Neville was the one who organized us,” said Harry firmly and Ron nodded.

“That’s right,” said Harry as they patted a brilliantly blushing Neville on his shoulders.

They smiled at each other, Neville beaming brightest of all.

There are some experiences you can’t share without becoming friends, and fighting off a trio of five-foot tall spiders was apparently one of them.

Ron winced and hissed, clutching his arm again under the flowing water. His arm was slowly swelling like one of Dudley’s birthday balloons, Harry noticed with rapidly escalating alarm.

“Oh no…” Hermione stared at his arm.

“So, I think I might be poisoned,” Ron said dazedly. Neville rushed to support him as he staggered against the sink.

“We need to get you to the infirmary,” said Hermione authoritatively around the quaver in her voice.

“We’re not going back out there,” Ron said firmly, looking alert and determined. “Professors will find us soon—I'm fine, it just hurts a lot.”

“Acromantula venom is very rare and expensive because it’s so dangerous!” Hermione said insistently.

“It doesn’t sound like they’re outside anymore,” said Harry, who had his ear to the door.

“Even if they aren’t the little ones’ll just tell ‘em,” said Ron.

“Regular-sized spiders don’t work for Acromantulas—they’re just spiders,” Hermione told them. “If Harry thinks it’s safe… we should go.”

“Come on, Ron, we can do it,” Neville said, but Ron wasn’t willing to go.

Neville was perfectly happy with moving him, though. He looped Ron’s good arm over his shoulders, slinging his arm around Ron’s waist.

“I can walk fine, Neville,” Ron groused.

“Sure you can,” Neville said, his calm tone belied by his shakey voice and the way his eyes kept flicking to Ron’s limp wet arm. “Harry? Hermione? You guys lead the way?”

“I’ll go in front,” said Harry. “Hermione—watch our backs.”

“Right,” she said, her knuckles white with how tightly she gripped her wand. “ _Alohomora._ ”

The door unsealed and Harry eased it open. He leaned close and peeked out.

An empty hall greeted him, but for a few dead spiders—the standard sort. Harry exhaled in relief and opened the door fully.

“Coast is clear,” said Harry. “Let’s go.”

“Where do you think they went?” Hermione hissed in a loud whisper.

“I reckon they’re off looking for that prize, right?” said Ron, leaning too heavily on Neville for how good a front he was trying to put up. He seemed determined not to worry them.

Harry stepped on something and lifted his foot.

“Oh.” Harry had stepped on Ron’s wand. Although Acromantula ichor covered it, the real damage was the fact it had been snapped in two.

“Bloody hell,” Ron sighed and then laughed. It wasn’t a very happy sound. “When it rains it pours, I suppose.”

“Maybe they can fix it,” said Hermione. Harry reached down to pick it up both pieces, wiping them on the hem of his robe to clean them.

“Maybe,” said Ron sadly.

“So—er—what do you guys think they were looking for?” said Neville, casting about for something to distract Ron.

“Whatever that prize is, right?” said Ron.

“I bet it’s whatever Dumbledore’s hiding,” said Harry. “Er…”

“The infirmary is this way,” said Hermione assuredly. “And Dumbledore’s hiding something at Hogwarts?

“You know the forbidding third-floor corridors? The professors have set up a series of defenses for something important. That’s why we can’t go up there.”

“Well, I guess that explains the giant three-headed dog,” said Ron dryly.

“What?”

Apparently, Ron, Neville, and Hermione had an inadvertent adventure early on in the year—and they’d encountered the first obstacle.

“I guess that’s Fluffy,” said Harry slowly. 

The others were looking at him in confusion and Harry explained what Hagrid had let slip to him.

“Blimey,” Neville gasped. “What could Professor Dumbledore be hiding?”

Whatever speculation they might have concocted was interrupted by a furious boom elsewhere in the castle—just above them—in the forbidden third-floor corridor.

Where Sirius had gone—followed by Snape.

“Sirius!” Harry took off running, ignoring the cries to stop from behind him. If anything had happened to Sirius…

He’d be alone again.

Harry raced down the hallway, his robes streaming behind him. Then it was up the stairs, his legs burning and a stitch developing on his side, then down another hall until he skidded to a halt in the third-floor corridor.

Gasping for breath, Harry gaped at the sight before him.

Sirius stood with his wand pointed at Snape, who was bleeding from one leg and sprawled on the floor, his wand also drawn. Dead spiders the size of carts and carriages lay strewn around the hallway, many of them still smoking from whatever curses Sirius and Snape had cast on them.

Only it looked like the last spells they’d cast had been toward each other.

“Going to finish the job your pet started?” Snape’s eyes glittered with cruel amusement, but Sirius met him with more of the same.

Neither of them had noticed him.

“I should, shouldn’t I? It’s not like there’s anyone who would even care to mourn you—let alone avenge you.”

Harry’s breath caught in his throat, and he felt pinned in place by the tableau before him. This was a side to Sirius he’d never seen before, although from Snape it wasn’t quite so surprising. The hairs on the nape of Harry’s neck stood on end like soldiers at attention, electricity racing down his spine as the air seemed to shimmer as if from a great heat around the tips of Sirius and Snape’s wands.

“Well, go on, then, Black,” Snape drawled. “Or are you still not man enough to do the deed yourself?”

“More of a man than you, Snivellus,” Sirius said, and Snape’s face contorted with hate.

Energy from their wands spiked forth as they cursed each other almost in unison. Harry shouted, but was overshadowed by the roar of magic—come from behind him.

“ _Fianto Negatum!”_

A shimmering white barrier--so brilliant it nearly blinded Harry--appeared between the two spells. Both curses hit the shield, and the resulting blast as they were canceled out knocked Harry over with a loud cry—right into Dumbledore’s outstretched hand.

“Harry!” Sirius cried out in alarm.

Dumbledore’s grip was surprisingly strong for such an old, frail looking wizard, and he roughly hauled Harry back onto his feet as he stalked forward, looking furious, his blue eyes crystal clear with anger.

“I had hoped, Gentlemen, that you’d finally outgrown such childish displays!” Dumbledore roared, his wand clutched tightly in his grasp. “Especially in light of your respective promises to me at the beginning of this year!”

“I caught Black snooping around—,” Snape began.

“No you bloody well did not, I was—,” Sirius started up as well.

“SILENCE!” Dumbledore bellowed. “You will behave appropriately as professors, or I shall have you removed!”

Sirius and Snape still had their wands trained on each other, but they gradually lowered them in the face of Dumbledore’s anger. If Harry had thought that standing by an angry Sirius felt like being next to a downed power line than being near Dumbledore at that moment was like standing in front of a lightning strike that went on and on.

“Seeing as our agreement remained conditional on just such an altercation _not_ occurring, we shall be redefining some of my terms, as we agreed would be the case should _just such an altercation occur_.” Dumbledore’s tone held steel in its grip hard enough to bend lesser metals. “Is that understood?”

Snape simply bared his teeth while Sirius nodded curtly.

Dumbledore’s wand crackled, and he stared at it for a long moment before putting it away. Then he sighed, momentarily looking ancient and tired, before turning his gaze on Harry adopting a somewhat rueful smile.

“Are you all right, Harry?” Dumbledore asked.

“I’m fine—but Ron’s hurt!” Harry exclaimed.

“Yes, I believe Professor McGonagall is already seeing to her wayward charges,” said Dumbledore kindly and Harry sighed in relief as Sirius strode over to him.

Behind Sirius through the open door was a large furry mound, and Harry could just make out enough heads to assume the mound was Fluffy. Inside the room were scattered more Acromantulas or at least the still twitching pieces of them.

Fluffy, however, wasn’t moving.

“Are you really all right?” Sirius asked when he reached Harry, dropping to one knee to be on eye level with him.

“I’m fine,” Harry said. “Ron was the only one who got hurt.”

“What were you even doing out of your dorm?” Sirius asked.

“An inquiry I would like answered as well,” said Snape from where Dumbledore traced his wand in a circular pattern over his leg. Bandages rapidly swirled through the air to wrap themselves along his wound, along with a soothing blue light. “Enough, Albus, I’ll see Poppy for the rest.

“Was Mr. Weasely envenomed by a bite?” Dumbledore asked, ignoring his surly charge.

“I don’t think so, it looked like a scratch,” said Harry, looking behind him at a sound like a bull galloping on a cobblestone street.

“Sirius, would you see to—“ Dumbledore began when he was interrupted.

“FLUFFY!!!” Hagrid stampeded down the hall, brushing past Sirius and Harry without a care. He wailed as he fell to his knees beside the huge three-headed dog. “NOOOOOO!”

“Stand aside, Hagrid,” Dumbledore ordered but not unkindly, and Hagrid stumbled backward. Dumbledore waved his wand over Fluffy in a circular pattern, and the dog twitched and groaned.

Snape was standing now, or at least leaning against the wall, his bandaged leg also in a clever looking silver splint. He was glaring at Sirius, and Harry’s scar itched.

“Harry! Harry are you alright?” came a shout from down the hall.

Harry raised his head to see Neville rounding the corner only for him to freeze in horror at the sight of all the professors and Fluffy.

“Hello, Mr. Longbottom,” Dumbledore said not unkindly. “As you can see the situation is well in hand, though I should dearly like to hear what possessed you, Mr. Potter, and Mr. Weasely all to sneak out during a castle lockdown.”

“Neville! Did you find—oh.” Hermione pulled up to a halt next to Neville, her eyes wide like dinner plates. “Professors!”

“O’ there ya go Fluffy!” Hagrid bawled as the massive three-headed dog moaned and thumped his tail weakly. “Don’t try ta move—stay, _stay_ —tha’s a good boy!”

“Ms. Granger!” Professors McGonagall strode around the corner, her lips pinched and her face white. Ron floated along behind her in a stretcher, asleep and looking much better. His injured arm was in a golden bubble that shimmered gently. “Please do not disappoint me further this evening by running off again!”

“I’m sorry, Professor, but I was worried about Harry,” said Neville stepping in front of Hermione. “I’ll take the blame.”

“How noble of you, Mr. Longbottom, but such gestures aren’t going to avail you now,” said Snape, his face drawn in pain and contempt.

“Do none of you realize you could have all been killed?” Professor McGonagall scolded them furiously. “Why on earth weren’t you all in your dormitories?”

Neville looked at Harry in a silent conversation. One of them was going to shoulder the blame for this, and Neville was clearly willing to but so was Harry.

The decision was taken out of their hands by a small, tremulous voice.

“They were looking for me,” Hermione said, her gaze fastened down to her toes.

“Ms. Granger?” asked Dumbledore gently.

“I thought--I thought they were just spiders, so how dangerous could they be? I didn’t know there’d be Acromantulas, so it’s all my fault!”

Harry knew he must look as shocked as Neville—Hermione Granger was not the sort who told lies to a professor!

“If they hadn’t come to find me I’d be dead now,” said Hermione almost defiantly, barely meeting Dumbledore’s eyes but unflinching all the same.

“Honestly, Ms. Granger!” Professor McGonagall’s disappointment was palpable, and Hermione cringed in the face of it. “I shall have to take five points form Gryffindor for this, and I’m very disappointed in you.”

“And as touching as Ms. Granger’s defense is, I don’t think it should negate the actions of her fellow rule breakers,” said Snape.

“Come on now, no one got hurt,” said Sirius in a soothing tone that seemed to have the opposite effect on every professor who was present, judging by their faces. “Let’s just take some house points and be glad the Acromantulas learned the castle is a no go for as their hunting ground.”

“They weren’t hunting, they were looking for something,” said Harry. The professors all looked at him, including Sirius, which was all that kept Harry from quailing under their attention.

“How do you know that, Harry?” Sirius asked, letting Harry focus his attention on him. It made talking easier.

“We heard them talking,” said Harry and Neville and Hermione nodded, backing his story up. “When we were hiding—they were trying to get in, and then another one came and told them it didn’t seek children, and then it ordered them to find the prize.”

“Its prize,” Hermione corrected him and then shrank under the sudden shift of focus.       

“Professor, ye have to believe me, Aragog would never do this,” Hagrid pleaded from where he knelt beside Fluffy.

“I’m sure,” sneered Snape but Dumbledore held his hand up.

“Quiet, Hagrid, please,” said Dumbledore sharply but not unkindly. “We can debate the finer points of certain theories after our students have been returned to their dormitories.”

“But you believe me, right?” Harry asked, turning to Sirius, feeling oddly desperate. Sirius had to believe him he just had to! “It said it didn’t seek children, so they must be after the thing Professor Dumbledore is hiding on the third-floor corridor.”

“Ah ha!” Sirius cried. “I was right!”

“Right about what?” Dumbledore asked mildly.

“Well, obviously someone wants the—You Know What,” said Sirius making a vague gesture in response to a rather sharp look from McGonagall. “And I reckon they have a penchant for spiders if that’s anything to go on.”

McGonagall didn’t look happy to be discussing whatever they were hiding even obliquely, but Dumbledore was considering Sirius’s words.

“Gifted with spiders…” Dumbledore stroked his beard. “Well, this situation certainly merits further investigation, and that’s as sound a place to start as any. However, I think any more discussion should wait until our young charges are returned to their dorms.”

“If none of you are injured I’ll be accompanying Mr. Weasely to the Hospital Wing. Severus, may I offer you some assistance?” McGonagall asked.

“If you must,” he grumbled, and Harry wondered if he imagined the little smile that played about McGonagall’s lips.

“Sirius, if you would see to it that Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom, and Ms. Granger are returned to their Houses for the remainder of the feast,” Dumbledore said with a nod, less a request than a statement.

A sour look crossed Sirius’ face for a moment but then he looked down at Harry, and the grimace faded into an affectionate smile that made Harry’s heart tight. He still wasn’t used to that, to feeling like someone cared about him.

Sirius patted Harry on the shoulder and grinned at Hermione and Neville. “Let’s get you lot back to your dinners, eh?”

“And perhaps… yes, ten points to Gryffindor and five to Slytherin,” said Dumbledore with a quick wink at Harry. “Now off you go.”

Ten points minus five meant both houses were awarded five points overall. Harry grinned at Neville who grinned back, and even Hermione offered them a timid smile.

“Alright, you troublemakers,” said Sirius, gently herding them away from the secret Dumbledore was hiding. “Let’s get along now.”

All in all, it had been a rather exciting evening. Harry wondered if Blaise and Theo would believe him when he told them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know if the worldbuilding gets distracting because that means it's either ineffective or taking up needless narrative space


End file.
